The judiciary-military divide

Why? And to whose benefit?

Let’s face it: there is a concerted move afoot to pit the military against the judiciary. Indications are that the vested interests may have made some headway in the direction.

The question is if these two principal institutions continue on a conflict course, who would benefit? The military? The judiciary? Not really. The real beneficiaries would be the ones who have preached and practised the culture of corruption in the country and who have woven conspiracies inimical to the interests of the state. If that be so, how come the judiciary’s focus has shifted from prosecuting the eternally errant conglomerate at the helm and their multiple cohorts to mundane and inconsequential issues like the extension granted to the army chief just a year short of his retirement?

The government’s move not to accept the judicial commission’s recommendation duly approved by the parliamentary committee in the matter of the appointment of judges in the Islamabad High Court (IHC) is a clear acknowledgement of its nefarious intentions. The fact that the president has now decided to move a reference against the appointments, thus keeping the IHC dysfunctional for the time being, should be sufficient indicator regarding the government’s real motive. It is nothing but to accentuate the divide between the military and the judiciary so that it could continue with its humiliating shenanigans headed by its multi-pronged strategy to install a friendly interim government that it could then exploit to secure electoral dividends.

The move has picked up in intensity and speed in view of the Election Commission of Pakistan’s request and the judiciary’s subsequent agreement to appoint judicial officers to supervise the electoral process in the country. While this would be a critical ingredient to the holding of fair and transparent elections, it would have dashed the government’s intentions to install a process instead that would have worked to its exclusive benefit. Consequently, the need for the ill-intentioned move to sabotage the prospect of an ECP-judiciary-collaboration by creating and encouraging a military-judiciary divide and put the latter under pressure to renege on its commitment to uphold the ascendency of the rule of law across all political and executive divides.

The government also wants to exploit the prevalent popular perception that the US is targeting the military in general and the ISI in particular. The Supreme Court judgement in the Asghar Khan case ordering the initiation of prosecution proceedings against a former COAS and a former DG, ISI together with the hearing of other cases implicating some former army generals has provided further fuel to the fire that the government had so cleverly ignited. Its new-found love for the military so close to the next general elections, therefore, makes a lot of sense. But, does the furtherance of its corrupt interests also serve the national cause and the need for remaining focussed on the existential challenges that Pakistan is faced with today?

The military’s blow-hot-blow-cold attitude has further confused the national mindset. From the extreme of submitting signed affidavits by the COAS and the DG ISI in the matter of the memo scandal to its virtual about-turn in pursuing the case, or the closure of the NATO supply routes and its later capitulation thus causing an unnecessary fissure in the US-Pakistan relations are some of the instances reflecting contagious ambivalence. Such unworthy demonstration also creates doubts as to the commitment within the leaderships of various state institutions to safeguard the national security paradigm.

Concurrently, the judiciary’s penchant to over-extend its limits and adjudicate in matters that should have been left alone has deflated its energy and created palpable doubts as to its effectiveness in getting its verdicts enforced. Understandably, it should have concentrated on keeping its canvas manageable and focussing more on making its judgements relevant both in terms of their impact and implementation. On the face of it, it has experienced a fair degree of failure on both these fronts, thus exposing it to criticism from forces that were never happy with its undertakings in the first instance. The matters were rendered worse by the government’s ceaseless endeavours to defy the judiciary blatantly and involve its top judges in ill-conceived scandals. A better strategy for the judiciary would have been to take up fewer challenges, but driving all its adjudications to their natural and meaningful culmination.

Both these institutions, having suffered discernible setbacks as to their credibility, made the government’s task that much easier. The PPP-led coalition’s principal intention was always to damage the legitimacy of institutions it feared the most including the military and the judiciary so that it could stamp its domineering authority in determining the fate of the country. The growing weakness of the state institutions only facilitates the attainment of that objective.

For the military and the judiciary, it is time to take a step back. Any further aggravation of the inter-institution relations in the contemporary environment would be tantamount to jeopardising the advent of a genuinely democratic culture and polity strengthened and augmented by the promulgation of the rule of law across all divides and divisions. The role of these institutions in facilitating a change to the desired objectives holds an indisputable centrality. Any weakening of their power or dissipation of their resolve would only boost the chances of the corrupt mafias that have already inflicted irremediable damage on the state fabric. With the weakening of one or both these institutions, the corrupt scavenging masquerades of these criminal mafias would only increase aimed at accelerating the pace of their adversaries’ demise. The need is for these mafias to be defanged and that would come about not by the military fighting the judiciary or the judiciary fighting the military. That would come about by both these institutions taking a joint stand for the ascendency of the rule of law and remaining firm in their resolve to usher in a new Pakistan that would be free of the germs of corruption and the penchant for promoting individual interests at the cost of the national priorities.

The writer is a political analyst. He can be reached at: [email protected]