Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Mir Jamilur Rahman
Chaudhry Aitzaz Ahsan and Ahsan Iqbal, leaders of the PPP and the PML-N respectively, have predicted that heavens will fall if the Supreme Court tries to interpret the 18th Amendment. The thrust of their message is that the Supreme Court should not mess with parliament because the latter is supreme as it represents the 170 million people of the country.
The stance taken by both politicians implies that the verdict of parliament cannot be questioned by the Supreme Court, which is a non-representative body. Mr Ahsan Iqbal went to the extent of saying that, on the question of interpretation of the 18th Amendment, his party would only accept the decision of parliament. He foresees collision between parliament and the Supreme Court. However, his party-leader, Mian Nawaz Sharif, has tried to make amends by stating that the judiciary is as respectable as parliament.
What if there was a clash between the Supreme Court and parliament? The losers would be the ruling class and not the people. The rulers would lose their VIP status and their fat salaries and swelling perks. Our MNAs are the highest paid (salary plus perks) public servants in Pakistan. They get these emoluments working an hour a day on average. On the other hand, the common people have nothing to lose. Whoever wins or loses the condition of the majority of the people who live in poverty is not going to change.
The claim that we are a democracy seems incorrect in the present situation. How can we be a democracy when most laws are made by the law ministry and not by parliament? Last week, immediately after the adjournment of the National Assembly, 12 laws (ordinances) were promulgated in one day. What is the need of having 345 highly-paid MNAs if they cannot perform their primary duty of law-making? The ministry of law under the able guidance of Dr Babar Awan is performing the law-making tasks very efficiently. Why elect 345 representatives to make laws when this can be done by thirty-odd officers of the law ministry?
The PPP and the PML-N are speaking with one voice against the Supreme Court. This is an extraordinary development, which nobody could have foreseen a few months ago.
Thanks to President Zardari, the champion of consensus politics, all small and big parties are paying homage to him for making the 18th Amendment possible. The PML-N will also join the ‘homage queue’ once some important compromises have been achieved to ease Nawaz Sharif’s entry into parliament
Aitzaz Ahsan has warned that the very existence of an independent judiciary will be at stake if the Supreme Court gets involved in interpreting the 18th Amendment. Ahsan Iqbal is asking the SC to accept the verdict of parliament as final. Both have alluded to the secret hand, Ahsan Iqbal more explicitly. He said, “In fact, there was a force, which was upset because of the creation of two powerful institutions, parliament and the judiciary.” For obvious reasons, Mr Ahsan Iqbal dares not say who the secret hand belongs to.
Aitzaz Ahsan and Ahsan Iqbal know very well that the chief justice cannot be intimidated by press statements and idiotic threats. Hardly any political leader could have withstood the threats handed out personally by the chief of army staff to the chief justice in the presence of other high and mighty of the state. Since then, the chief justice has developed a strong immunity to threats.
Email: mirjrahman@hotmail .com
