dabong1
<b>PDF VETERAN</b>
- Joined
- Nov 28, 2006
- Messages
- 4,417
- Reaction score
- 1
Saturday, October 13, 2007
Babar Sattar
The writer is a lawyer based in Islamabad. He is a Rhodes Scholar and has an LLM from Harvard Law School
After his coup General Pervez Musharraf declared that Pakistan had hit "rock bottom" and "rise it must." He condemned the-then prevailing culture of corruption and collusion and assured the nation that Pakistan would be cleansed of degenerate political elites and that "true democracy" would be ushered in. The argument seemed logical and encouraging to those incensed by a decade of loot and "dysfunctional democracy." At the time it seemed incomprehensible how our already depleted fortunes could be diminished any further. But the general has really put to the test this nation's faith in its own resilience. Every time there is a near consensus that we have finally hit rock bottom, the rulers show more imagination.
As if the general's re-selection as president for another five-year term from his minions was not enough of an Eid package, we have also been blessed with the National Reconciliation Ordinance, 2007. This would definitely compete for the title of the most sinister law ever introduced in Pakistan. It is conceptually malicious and substantively flawed. While it claims to promote "national reconciliation, foster mutual trust and confidence amongst holders of public office and remove the vestiges of political vendetta and victimisation," it does none of that. By using the concept of reconciliation that was being advocated in the media as the need of the hour to give this nation a healing touch (especially after the Lal Masjid debacle), the spin-doctors of the ruling regime have discredited the concept itself.
What Pakistan needs to reconcile is divergent views on two issues: how to fix the civil-military imbalance and what role should religion be attributed in matters of state. A pluralist, tolerant and inclusive approach to politics was being conceived as the process that would enable competing views on these issues to be amicably exchanged and help leading political actors to agree on certain rules of the game to get Pakistan out of the morass in which it is caught. Who could have imagined that condoning corruption would be the general's preferred approach to reconciliation? If one of Pakistan's foremost problems has been the abuse of state authority by holders of public offices to amass illegitimate wealth, how will allowing the corrupt go scot-free without affixing responsibility for their past deeds and facilitating their return to power help the country?
As a conceptual matter, reconciliation is not an alternative to justice. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa, where concepts of reconciliation and amnesty were used together, is often cited as a success story where concepts of reconciliation and amnesty were used together. The paramount objective there was to uncover truth about human-rights abuses during apartheid, and for that purpose grant of amnesty was used as a mechanism to encourage disclosure. First of all, it is debatable whether grant of amnesty is justifiable at all in the context of Pakistan, where the twin problem during the 1990s was that the ruling regimes abused state authority with impunity and the opposition continued to encourage the military to interfere with the political process.
In this backdrop, we don't need to uncover any hidden facts. All we require is an unequivocal resolve by politicians to build representative democracy, strengthen civilian control of the military and not rock the boat when they are in opposition. And, further, an enabling environment for the courts to determine the merits of corruption and other criminal charges against politicians in a non-partisan manner. Even if there is any conceivable rationale for amnesty, such a pardon must be contingent on disclosure and acceptance of wrongdoing. That Pakistan is plagued by one of the highest levels of corruption in the world is an undisputed fact. If the logic of the National Reconciliation Ordinance is to be accepted and corruption cases against all holders of public office pending before the courts are to be quashed for being politically motivated, who has been plundering our national wealth?
The reconciliation law also falls foul of Article 25 of our Constitution. This article promises all citizens equal protection of the law, subject to reasonable distinctions. Holders of public office do not constitute a vulnerable class that needs special protection of the law over and above that afforded to ordinary citizens. The reconciliation law has amended the National Accountability Ordinance in order to terminate all proceedings against holders of public office initiated prior to October 12, 1999, and to declare void any orders of the courts passed in absentia. It also amends the Code of Criminal Procedure to create a review board that can withdraw cases initiated between Jan. 1, 1986, and October 12, 1999, against any accused found by such board "to be falsely involved for political reasons or through political victimisation."
The reconciliation law thus creates whimsical distinctions and arbitrary cuts off dates and is a tailor-made cover for the misdeeds of the PPP and the MQM. Equally importantly, it launches an insidious attack on the jurisdiction of the judicature. Within our constitutional design, determination of the culpability of any accused falls within the judiciary's domain. While the president has been given the extraordinary constitutional power to grant a pardon or remit the sentence of a convict, the distinction between pardon and acquittal is vital. The Constitution allows the president to pardon a convict, but it does not endow him with the ability to erase someone's guilt. Through this unique law, the general has attempted to usurp such authority for the executive to whitewash the past record of a politician willing to play ball.
The Musharraf regime's method of accountability and its approach to reconciliation are, in fact, two sides of the same coin. In the aftermath of his coup, and especially prior to the national election of 2002, the general used the NAB process as a stick to bring politicians with a questionable past within the fold of the King's' party. Now, during the run-up to the 2008 national election, the National Reconciliation Ordinance has been brought in as a carrot to cast a wider net and cobble together another illicit coalition of the susceptible. The casualty in all this is justice and accountability. After all, there are only two fundamental approaches to accountability: political and legal. Lack of a fair electoral process or meaningful self-governance renders accountability through the polls largely ineffectual. And the National Reconciliation Ordinance has attempted to neuter the legal resource to holding the corrupt accountable.
If someone were to script a strategy on how a government can break the spirit of a nation, Pakistan in 2007 would be one useful illustration. Listing a few watershed events is probably explanation enough: dismissal of the chief justice, the massacre of May 12, the tragedy of Lal Masjid, the insurgency in FATA, the suicide bombings, the forced deportation of Nawaz Sharif in which the related Supreme Court ruling was flouted, the general's re-selection as president in uniform and now the reconciliation law.
But more importantly, 2007 has also been a year of missed opportunities. The general could have decided to hold free and fair elections, return the country to its people and walk into the sunset, but he didn't. The nation was up in arms fighting for the independence of judiciary and restoration of the chief justice, but the rewards of that poignant success have been fleeting, at best. The opposition parties could have harnessed the energy of the lawyers' struggle and transformed it into a political movement for restoration of democracy, but it neither had the credibility nor the charisma for that, nor did it exhibit the selflessness needed to fight for something larger than parochial interests. And then the second line of leadership within the PPP, the ruling PML-Q and even the JUI-F could have shown the courage to break ranks and prefer personal integrity over the diktat of expediency and depraved political cunning, but they didn't.
The most promising claim any available candidate for power in Pakistan today can make is that he or she is the lesser evil. And that in a nutshell explains the source of despondency as well as the country's tragedy.
Email: [email protected]
Triumph of corruptocracy
Babar Sattar
The writer is a lawyer based in Islamabad. He is a Rhodes Scholar and has an LLM from Harvard Law School
After his coup General Pervez Musharraf declared that Pakistan had hit "rock bottom" and "rise it must." He condemned the-then prevailing culture of corruption and collusion and assured the nation that Pakistan would be cleansed of degenerate political elites and that "true democracy" would be ushered in. The argument seemed logical and encouraging to those incensed by a decade of loot and "dysfunctional democracy." At the time it seemed incomprehensible how our already depleted fortunes could be diminished any further. But the general has really put to the test this nation's faith in its own resilience. Every time there is a near consensus that we have finally hit rock bottom, the rulers show more imagination.
As if the general's re-selection as president for another five-year term from his minions was not enough of an Eid package, we have also been blessed with the National Reconciliation Ordinance, 2007. This would definitely compete for the title of the most sinister law ever introduced in Pakistan. It is conceptually malicious and substantively flawed. While it claims to promote "national reconciliation, foster mutual trust and confidence amongst holders of public office and remove the vestiges of political vendetta and victimisation," it does none of that. By using the concept of reconciliation that was being advocated in the media as the need of the hour to give this nation a healing touch (especially after the Lal Masjid debacle), the spin-doctors of the ruling regime have discredited the concept itself.
What Pakistan needs to reconcile is divergent views on two issues: how to fix the civil-military imbalance and what role should religion be attributed in matters of state. A pluralist, tolerant and inclusive approach to politics was being conceived as the process that would enable competing views on these issues to be amicably exchanged and help leading political actors to agree on certain rules of the game to get Pakistan out of the morass in which it is caught. Who could have imagined that condoning corruption would be the general's preferred approach to reconciliation? If one of Pakistan's foremost problems has been the abuse of state authority by holders of public offices to amass illegitimate wealth, how will allowing the corrupt go scot-free without affixing responsibility for their past deeds and facilitating their return to power help the country?
As a conceptual matter, reconciliation is not an alternative to justice. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa, where concepts of reconciliation and amnesty were used together, is often cited as a success story where concepts of reconciliation and amnesty were used together. The paramount objective there was to uncover truth about human-rights abuses during apartheid, and for that purpose grant of amnesty was used as a mechanism to encourage disclosure. First of all, it is debatable whether grant of amnesty is justifiable at all in the context of Pakistan, where the twin problem during the 1990s was that the ruling regimes abused state authority with impunity and the opposition continued to encourage the military to interfere with the political process.
In this backdrop, we don't need to uncover any hidden facts. All we require is an unequivocal resolve by politicians to build representative democracy, strengthen civilian control of the military and not rock the boat when they are in opposition. And, further, an enabling environment for the courts to determine the merits of corruption and other criminal charges against politicians in a non-partisan manner. Even if there is any conceivable rationale for amnesty, such a pardon must be contingent on disclosure and acceptance of wrongdoing. That Pakistan is plagued by one of the highest levels of corruption in the world is an undisputed fact. If the logic of the National Reconciliation Ordinance is to be accepted and corruption cases against all holders of public office pending before the courts are to be quashed for being politically motivated, who has been plundering our national wealth?
The reconciliation law also falls foul of Article 25 of our Constitution. This article promises all citizens equal protection of the law, subject to reasonable distinctions. Holders of public office do not constitute a vulnerable class that needs special protection of the law over and above that afforded to ordinary citizens. The reconciliation law has amended the National Accountability Ordinance in order to terminate all proceedings against holders of public office initiated prior to October 12, 1999, and to declare void any orders of the courts passed in absentia. It also amends the Code of Criminal Procedure to create a review board that can withdraw cases initiated between Jan. 1, 1986, and October 12, 1999, against any accused found by such board "to be falsely involved for political reasons or through political victimisation."
The reconciliation law thus creates whimsical distinctions and arbitrary cuts off dates and is a tailor-made cover for the misdeeds of the PPP and the MQM. Equally importantly, it launches an insidious attack on the jurisdiction of the judicature. Within our constitutional design, determination of the culpability of any accused falls within the judiciary's domain. While the president has been given the extraordinary constitutional power to grant a pardon or remit the sentence of a convict, the distinction between pardon and acquittal is vital. The Constitution allows the president to pardon a convict, but it does not endow him with the ability to erase someone's guilt. Through this unique law, the general has attempted to usurp such authority for the executive to whitewash the past record of a politician willing to play ball.
The Musharraf regime's method of accountability and its approach to reconciliation are, in fact, two sides of the same coin. In the aftermath of his coup, and especially prior to the national election of 2002, the general used the NAB process as a stick to bring politicians with a questionable past within the fold of the King's' party. Now, during the run-up to the 2008 national election, the National Reconciliation Ordinance has been brought in as a carrot to cast a wider net and cobble together another illicit coalition of the susceptible. The casualty in all this is justice and accountability. After all, there are only two fundamental approaches to accountability: political and legal. Lack of a fair electoral process or meaningful self-governance renders accountability through the polls largely ineffectual. And the National Reconciliation Ordinance has attempted to neuter the legal resource to holding the corrupt accountable.
If someone were to script a strategy on how a government can break the spirit of a nation, Pakistan in 2007 would be one useful illustration. Listing a few watershed events is probably explanation enough: dismissal of the chief justice, the massacre of May 12, the tragedy of Lal Masjid, the insurgency in FATA, the suicide bombings, the forced deportation of Nawaz Sharif in which the related Supreme Court ruling was flouted, the general's re-selection as president in uniform and now the reconciliation law.
But more importantly, 2007 has also been a year of missed opportunities. The general could have decided to hold free and fair elections, return the country to its people and walk into the sunset, but he didn't. The nation was up in arms fighting for the independence of judiciary and restoration of the chief justice, but the rewards of that poignant success have been fleeting, at best. The opposition parties could have harnessed the energy of the lawyers' struggle and transformed it into a political movement for restoration of democracy, but it neither had the credibility nor the charisma for that, nor did it exhibit the selflessness needed to fight for something larger than parochial interests. And then the second line of leadership within the PPP, the ruling PML-Q and even the JUI-F could have shown the courage to break ranks and prefer personal integrity over the diktat of expediency and depraved political cunning, but they didn't.
The most promising claim any available candidate for power in Pakistan today can make is that he or she is the lesser evil. And that in a nutshell explains the source of despondency as well as the country's tragedy.
Email: [email protected]
Triumph of corruptocracy
