Civil society representatives on Sunday expressed their deep concerns over the ongoing political situation in the country, saying the “frivolously developed” memogate scandal had the potential of subverting the democratically-elected parliament. Members of various non-governmental organisations, labour unions, academia, women’s rights groups and journalists upheld the idea of protecting democracy from all conspiracies. “It is time that all conspirators against democracy and the sovereignty of the people are called to account. Sovereignty belongs to the people who have agreed to exercise it through their representatives in a federal, parliamentary, and democratic system. Any attempt at arbitrarily altering this arrangement is tantamount to an attack on the sovereignty of the people,” they said in a statement.
They said the judiciary’s role was to protect the citizens’ rights from arbitrary abuse of executive power, rather than becoming a source of arbitrary executive power. “Various institutions of the state are supposed to function within their defined constitutional parameters and to complement each other, but they seem to be working at beyond their scope,” they added. They said the role of political parties and leaders was to represent their constituencies’ interests and arrive at negotiated agreements in political forums. They said the role of security forces was to serve under constitutional arrangements under the command of the executive, and not to define what is or what is not in national interests. About the role of media, they said it should help citizens hold powerful interests groups within and outside the state to promote their legitimate interests and hold violators of people’s rights accountable, and not to act as an unaccountable interest group. They asked the Pakistani people to stand united and firm in support of democracy and to resist all attempts aimed at its subversion.
Civil society terms memogate ‘an attempt to thwart democracy’
