Only recently the US Ambassador to Pakistan was quoted by the national press, pressing Shahbaz Sharif to give up his radical position on the restoration of judges. This report, regardless of its veracity, sums up the essence of the US attitude towards the problem. Unfortunately, things do not end here. Apparently some Western intellectuals have also joined the bandwagon. On March 11, I received an e-mail from a Thomas Houlahan who, apart from mentioning that he was the Director of the Military Assessment Program, Center for Security and Science, Washington DC, also drew my attention to his report on the judicial crisis in Pakistan.

While my detailed assessment of his report (along with the download link and the tricky quotes from the author) will be shortly available on my website (www.pitafi.com), I must submit that upon reading its 47 pages I was seriously dismayed. Despite the fact that the author displayed considerable knowledge of the Pakistani history, he was quite consciously distorting facts and making some glaring omissions that suited his thesis perfectly. They say an analyst should never start researching with preconceived notions in mind. In this case, however, the analyst had entered the fray with a clear view to vindicating President Musharraf’s stance on the judiciary.

While there exists quite well-defined polarization on this issue in this country, I hardly expect to change too many opinions here. My only hope is that I will be able to save the fence sitter readers of mine from this horrible intellectual malnutrition. But before I move any further, I have two things to say. One of the reasons why the US government is vociferously supporting the cause of those who deposed the judges is that it fears that the political alternatives available to it may not be able to show enough commitment to the war on terror. If by enough commitment they essentially imply the mindless slaying of the Pakistani citizens with brute force as evident from Condoleezza Rice’s recent statement, then of course their fear is not misplaced.

Yet otherwise there is no gainsaying that Pakistan has lost more than 1,600 citizens directly to the terror acts since 9/11. How can then the West possibly think that any party in the government would lose interest in the war that has now become our own? The second point is that while the issue of Dr AQ Khan may fall in the purview of radicalism given the fact that his person is controversial internationally at best, and thanks to the very nature of the mandate he is not part of the most active agenda, the matters pertaining to the restoration of the judiciary and its independence remain freshly progressive and antithetical to any form of radicalism.

In a country where an elected and popular prime minister was murdered with the help of a pliant and manipulated judiciary and the repeated dismissals of the people’s representative governments were validated through courts, the ongoing judicial crisis attains critical import. My point here is that no individual is more important than an institution for if institutions keep functioning, a good supply of refreshing and charismatic individuals will always be ensured. Certainly the fertile soil of the Land of the Pure cannot become sterile all of a sudden.

Let us now try to trace the recent origins of the current constitutional crisis. Musharraf is on record on this. He in his own words was disturbed by the deposed Chief Justice’s (CJ’s) penchant for taking suo motu action. Since we in this country have been repeatedly demanding more judicial activism, this can hardly be counted among anyone’s shortcomings. The culmination, however, we are told came on the issue of the privatization of the Pakistan Steel Mills. Worried by the prospects of an adverse decision the uniformed president of Pakistan invited the CJ over, and employed his charms and stature to force him, in the presence of his intelligence men, to change his decision.

The CJ, however, chose to stay the course. Interestingly, this incident highlights the conduct of both sides quite clearly. You can see who was actually abusing his power and who was sticking with the principles. I know anyone can claim to be breaking the principle for the sake of the country’s better future, but consider this. On the face of it, the privatization policy of the previous government was quite good because it helped the state get disengaged from the fat and inefficient public sector companies while making money. Yet it does not mean that you just start throwing away enterprises for the sake of it without any serious benefit for the state.

I am sure if President Musharraf says so, the previous government must have been less corrupt than the past ones, yet one thing is beyond our comprehension. From the early days of the previous regime, when the government claimed that it had managed to collect $ 10 billion in the shape of foreign currency reserves, there has been a lot of privatisation. The economy we were told was progressing really fine too and we were borrowing quite regularly as well. So where did all that wealth go? It is a valid question because the government, following the IMF/World Bank advice on neo-liberal economic pattern, had withdrawn subsidies from the very start. Since even PML(Q) leadership is criticizing Shaukat Aziz’s policy, is it possible for President Musharraf to admit that his decision to sack the CJ was wrong?

The reason why the US has sided with those sacking the judiciary, albeit reluctantly, is also due to the fact that the CJ was also actively pursuing the suo motu case for the recovery of the missing citizens allegedly kidnapped by the country’s own clandestine service. Why was the government failing to produce these citizens in the courts despite the repeated advices of the apex court? Well, partly because of a military government’s hubris and partly owing to the fact that several of them had already been sent off to the foreign powers without even an extradition treaty or worse still killed. Now I cannot deny you the right to dislike the CJ in person, but I am afraid here again he was doing the right thing. It is your decision to choose whether Pakistan should be treated as a banana republic where governments kidnap and send off their citizens without any procedures or bilateral treaties or there should be transparency in every aspect and the country should be treated as an equal.

The problem with this country is that while it was born out of a legal and political struggle, all our woes have also arisen from the flaws in the judicial system and our gullible approach towards supporting authoritarianism. Just pick up any constitutional/legal commentary written before the start of the current crisis and see what the intelligentsia’s main complaint with the judiciary was? Here was a class of judges who refused to bow down to political pressures at last. And instead of worshiping them, see what we are doing. Do not restore them if you do not want to, but please do not insult our intelligence.

It is quite heartening that the new judiciary has moved quickly enough to quash all the baseless cases against the political class, but is it not true that had this country got no judicial problem from the start such cases would have never been framed or would have long been resolved? What makes a judge better than others is not his gesture towards the powerful, but his readiness to dispense justice at every cost.

Those who want to discredit these judges claim that they had taken oath under the Provisional Constitutional Order (PCO) too. But even if you do not pay heed to my contention that there is a marked difference between Musharraf’s PCO 1 and PCO 2, just consider this. Folks, when the affectees of the 2000 PCO are fully supporting the cause of the deposed judges, who are we to press this charge? And believe me, the restoration of judges is possible through the parliamentary motion as well as through an executive order.

The author is a Pakistani television journalist, columnist and commentator on security, political and media affairs. He can be reached through his website www.pitafi.com