The Lahore High Court’s decision dubbing the Inqilab and Azadi marches unconstitutional undermines the judiciary and everything that the courts and the principles of justice are supposed to uphold. After Gullu Butt’s untimely bail two days before the march was to begin, the high court order has further reduced the credibility of the legal system. If anything, it reflects evermore, the panic that has defined government policy in the last week and it is difficult to separate government pressure from the court order. The real question to ask is: What has the court got to do with an entirely political situation? The people’s right to protest a sitting government is one of the central tenants of democracy. Democratic protests anywhere in the world call for PM and government resignations when situations demand it. David Cameron faced the brunt of the UK public’s wrath over education policy, and Tony Blair was repeatedly asked to resign after the Iraq debacle. There are few coherent things coming to the fore of this situation, but let us be clear that demanding the departure of a sitting government is a constitutional and democratic right. The premise that the PML-N stalwarts are basing their entire counter-narrative on, is misleading and purely speaking, wrong. The protest, up till the writing of this editorial, has remained well within the ambit of the law.
There is no denying that both marches have many real and ideological flaws, but that factor becomes irrelevant when the actions of the government and judiciary are this circumspect. To top it off, Chaudary Nisar’s recent explanation claimed that the government’s heightened concern over the protests was because the PTI did not file an application with the Islamabad district administration for its march. The country is now honestly expected to believe that the government unleashed a madness of unheard-of proportions upon the public for a bit of paperwork. The greater burden of responsibility lies, as always, with the sitting government. Of that burden, with or without bringing the judiciary into it, there can be no absolving itself.
Friday, August 15, 2014
Pakistan: Shame On Punjab Judiciary: Court Order
The Lahore High Court’s decision dubbing the Inqilab and Azadi marches unconstitutional undermines the judiciary and everything that the courts and the principles of justice are supposed to uphold. After Gullu Butt’s untimely bail two days before the march was to begin, the high court order has further reduced the credibility of the legal system. If anything, it reflects evermore, the panic that has defined government policy in the last week and it is difficult to separate government pressure from the court order. The real question to ask is: What has the court got to do with an entirely political situation? The people’s right to protest a sitting government is one of the central tenants of democracy. Democratic protests anywhere in the world call for PM and government resignations when situations demand it. David Cameron faced the brunt of the UK public’s wrath over education policy, and Tony Blair was repeatedly asked to resign after the Iraq debacle. There are few coherent things coming to the fore of this situation, but let us be clear that demanding the departure of a sitting government is a constitutional and democratic right. The premise that the PML-N stalwarts are basing their entire counter-narrative on, is misleading and purely speaking, wrong. The protest, up till the writing of this editorial, has remained well within the ambit of the law.
There is no denying that both marches have many real and ideological flaws, but that factor becomes irrelevant when the actions of the government and judiciary are this circumspect. To top it off, Chaudary Nisar’s recent explanation claimed that the government’s heightened concern over the protests was because the PTI did not file an application with the Islamabad district administration for its march. The country is now honestly expected to believe that the government unleashed a madness of unheard-of proportions upon the public for a bit of paperwork. The greater burden of responsibility lies, as always, with the sitting government. Of that burden, with or without bringing the judiciary into it, there can be no absolving itself.
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