Better sense prevailed at last. After digging in their heels the government and the judiciary let the situation find a new equilibrium.
The Supreme Courts interim order referring to the parliament for reconsideration the new mechanism provided in the 18th Amendment for appointing members of the superior judiciary was hailed by the saner elements of society. But there obviously was a disappointment for the naysayers who had been trying to weaken the democratic dispensation by inciting a clash of institutions.
The more clever ones among them started picking holes in the governments response to the court decision. Even Prime Minister Gilanis appreciation of the verdict which he believed had enhanced the prestige of the Parliament was taken with a pinch of salt by them. But their prime target remained Law Minister Babar Awan and others of his ilk whom they always accused of trying to pitch the executive against the judiciary. And now they would have us believe that the court decision had only dashed the hopes of the hawks in the PPP!
Every time the apex court resumed hearing of the corruption cases involving top government functionaries the so-called situation rooms of certain private television channels started disseminating disinformation. Then there is no dearth of partisan anchors who would be doing the hatchet job of spreading rumours and manipulating public opinion to accept their tainted views. Many of them earned notoriety for predicting dates for the fall of the government and then making retractions. But the unsavoury practice of discrediting the PPP leadership continued unabated.
The surprising thing was a knee-jerk reaction from the superior judiciary to all this rumour mongering. The unsubstantiated report by a private television channel about the governments plan to denotify the reinstated judges compelled Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry to convene an extraordinary meeting of the Supreme Court after midnight and pass a restraining order to stop the executive from undermining the judiciary. It would have been disturbing for the PM to find the Court giving little credence to his denial of any such move having been planned.
The next day when Mr. Gilani appeared on the PTV to address the nation he was genuinely concerned. To him the refusal to accept his verbal denial of any move having been planned to sack the judges was tantamount to insulting the office of the prime minister. Theres no denying his assertion that when the judges were released from detention on his verbal orders then why hes being asked to furnish a written statement in the court that the government had no intention of undermining the judiciary. Thats the only bit of straight-talking. The rest of the speech was marked by the reassurances on holding the courts in the highest esteem.
And when the federal government is encountering pressures from any quarter you cant expect Nawaz Sharif to keep mum. The PMs address coincided with Nawazs scathing diatribe against President Asif Ali Zardari whom he kept warning to bring back millions of dollars that had been plundered from the national exchequer and stashed away in the banks abroad. It would be interesting to watch how the PML(N) leadership reacts if the apex court ever gets down to the business of recovering from the defaulters the hefty loans they had borrowed from the various banks in the last three decades and then got them written off.
Those who are now obsessed with siding with the judiciary and protecting its independence cannot escape the blame for intimidating the judges while in power. The storming of the Supreme Court building during the Second Nawaz government that led to the unceremonious exit of Sajjad Ali Shah will be recorded in our history as a period of a civilian dictatorship at its worst. And it turned out to be so when Nawaz Sharif tried to emasculate the powers of parliament by bulldozing the 15th constitutional Amendment through the National Assembly. But the bill that got stuck in the Senate for lack of two-thirds majority failed to see the light of the day.
The problem with our political leadership is that it keeps entertaining the dream of ruling the country in perpetuity. It adheres to the principles of justice and fairplay so long as it is in the opposition. While in power it lacks faith in both. At this stage when the country is encountering turbulence and still a long way from attaining political stability the mainstream opposition seems least interested in re-establishing the supremacy of the parliament. One wouldnt be surprised if the Constitutional Reforms Committee to which the apex court has now referred Article 175-A for review fails to evolve a consensus of the kind they had at the time of finalising the draft of the 18th Amendment. The lack of will to do so would only strengthen the forces inimical to democracy.
The writer is Executive Editor, Pakistan Today
