Karachi:Supreme justice

Editorial:http://www.thenews.com.pk/images/h1_11.jpg
A week of hearings of the Karachi suo motu case has ended and here is what we have learnt so far: the police are heavily politicised, with 40 percent of the force having political affiliations; the Sindh inspector general’s hands, according to himself, are tied and he cannot even authorise the transfer of police officials; The Rangers and the police blatantly resist cooperating with each other; political parties, in the words of the chief justice himself, seem to have morphed into militant groups; the party with more than 50 seats in the provincial assembly says it is ‘powerless’; the provincial government has the capacity but not the will to protect the lives, property and dignity of citizens; the situation in Karachi is worse, says DG Rangers, than that in Waziristan; and basically, all said and done, Karachi, and by extension Pakistan, are in dire straits. What lies ahead?

As Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry has warned, the fundamental rights of the people of Karachi need to be protected and the Constitution implemented “or else the army will have to come in”. As we well know, and as the CJ has reminded us, the protectors of the national interest always use the crutch of the ‘doctrine of necessity’ and step in on the pretext of saving the country from collapse. The court has taken long strides in blocking army interventions in the future with the July 31, 2009 decision that reads that “any action of the armed forces undertaken without the direction by the federal government shall be unconstitutional, illegal, void ab initio and consequently of no legal effect.” The Supreme Court has done its work; now, it’s time for the government to step up and take responsibility to restore order.

At the very least, every political party and each political leader or activist who has indulged in, or even flirted with, militant politics – and a lot have – should examine their consciences. In many countries, violence of the kind we have seen in Karachi would shock the political class into collective determination to change. It is a measure of how damaged Pakistani politics has now become that it is hard to expect any such thing. A responsible government would not treat violence of the kind Karachi is experiencing with this level of indifference. There have to be collective and creative political responses. Because the public is tired of the chaos. And the public chooses the government. Be careful what you wish for.