Really, Interior Minister?
Perhaps in his enthusiasm to appease the lawyers community, our worthy interior minister, Mr Rehman Malik, in his address to Lahore High Court Bar Association on March 3, made an announcement to issue “Blue Passport” coupled with prohibited bore armed licenses for the office bearers of bars and bar councils across the country. This is a most imprudent decision devoid of any logic or reason except an attempt to win over the lawyers community.
In the first place, prohibited bore are assault weapons and not weapons of self-defence; hence, none of the sections of public including our worthy ministers, members of parliament, bureaucrats, generals, judges or journalists should be allowed to possess such lethal weapons, which are capable of being misused and would inevitably add to the rampant violence and killings across the country. Authorities should be conscious of the fact that no matter how many arms you may possess, the person who pulls the gun first becomes the master of their fate.
Instead of pursing the policy of deweaponising the society, which was the agenda of Chairperson Shaheed Benazir Bhutto, much to our disappointment, the present governments both at the federal and provincial levels are continuing to follow policies of General Pervez Musharraf to weaponise all the rich and influentials by dolling out to them hundreds of thousands of licenses to possess prohibited dangerous assault weapons. The exhibition and use of such deadly weapons enables the rich and influential to assert themselves more on the poor, oppressed and unarmed citizens, more particularly in the rural areas.
Federal and provincial governments are also not mindful of the fact that with the proliferation of dangerous weapons in our society, there is a consistent unchecked rise and rise in militancy and incidents of terrorism. Already, the people of Pakistan are suffering from an immense sense of insecurity and the terrorism through lethal weapons spreading within our country is adding to that as it is a big threat to the integrity of our country as well.
One of the most imprudent policy adopted by our governments, particularly in Gen Musharraf’s days, was to liberally allow possession and use of many lethal weapons in the hands of our ruling elite, their allies including all the tribal and feudal lords. This policy has proved to be self-destructive and renders our Law Enforcement Agencies hapless and unable to contain, confront or eradicate the extremist religious and ethnic terrorist forces and organised mafias of the criminals loaded with most modern weapons of destruction.
As regards, the plea to secure the ruling elite and their allies, it may be remembered, that they are already enjoying protection free of charge from the soldiers of paramilitary forces, commandoes and police in more than required numbers. On the contrary, what is more important and deserving of this security is the life and property of ordinary citizens.
This is the paramount duty of the state as guaranteed under Article 9 of our Constitution. Failure to provide this much needed security to ordinary citizens cannot be a justification to liberally issue licenses of assault weapons in alarming numbers to the rich. In any event, the government cannot relinquish or outsource its basic obligation to provide security to the people.
The encouragement and promotion of private security agencies, that are capable of assuming the role and shape of private armies and impinge upon the privacy of the citizens as well, is also an imprudent policy. It may be noted that the private armies are clearly forbidden under Article 256 of the Constitution. Despite this clear constitutional prohibition, we witness huge number of licensed and unlicensed private armed companies/groups under one garb or pretext or the other. By promoting these private security agencies, the governments are implying that they have failed to discharge their basic obligation to protect life and property of ordinary citizens.
There is also yet another most objectionable aspect of the aforesaid decision of our worthy interior minister. Question rightly arises as to why should lawyers alone be favoured with a blue passport and licenses to possess assault weapons. Why is the same privilege not granted to all other professional bodies such as professors, doctors, bankers, chartered accountants, engineers, architects, senior journalists, labourers, intellectuals etc? After all, their contribution to society is not less than the lawyers.
It would also be relevant to point out that “Blue Passport”, is regarded as “Official Passport” issued gratis to the specified high-ranking officials of all the three institutions of the state. I am glad that by grant of this passport to the office bearers of the lawyers community, they will also enjoy the status of a high ranking government officials. The decision also suffers from yet another dichotomy in view of the fact that the term of the office bearers of the Bar Associations and most of the professional bodies is mostly 1/2 years, whereas the validity of the passports is generally to the tune of five years.
This would mean that they will continue to enjoy the privilege of blue passport even after the end of their tenure, a privilege which is not enjoyed even by the high ranking officials of the governments who are entitled to blue passport only during the term of their office. Assuming, if all other professional bodies are treated at par with the lawyers community, which will be in accordance with the constitution and all of them are granted “Blue Passports”, then an amusing aspect would emerge that colour of most of the Pakistani passports will change from “Green” to “Blue”, which is the colour of the ordinary passports of Indians.
The writer is a senior advocate of the Supreme Court, a former Senator, Attorney General and Federal Minister. He may be contacted at ihaider45@yahoo.com