It is time that the issue of immunity, its extent, applicability and jurisdiction be defined by the Supreme Court, so that sanity prevails and laws of natural justice and equality before the law is upheld. It is a universal law of jurisprudence that courts alone can interpret laws or clauses of constitution and not the executive exercising such powers. We live in times where even constitutional kings or monarchs do not enjoy such unlimited archaic powers, which place an individual beyond reproach and accountability. In the words of John Adams, the second President of the USA, in a democracy there is a “government of laws and not of men”.
People of Pakistan have suffered a lot because of excessive wrongs and abuses of powers by unethical individuals in government, most of them being military adventurers, or those opportunist politicians who have misruled this country through engineered polls. It is an unfortunate fate of 180 million people of Pakistan, that inspite of our vast natural and human resources, the vast majority lives below poverty line and their lives, or property are no longer safe because of poor governance and massive corruption perpetrated by greed and incompetence of those who have ruled us by default.
Pakistan’s survival lies in restoration of a democratic welfare state envisioned by Quaid-e-Azam and Allama Iqbal, instead of a fiefdom that it has been reduced to by men like Ayub Khan, Yahya, Zia, Musharraf and others.
GHULAM QADIR
Malikwal