Discarding the Compromises of Necessity

By Fraz Shafique

The elections opened the doors and the former opposition marched into the citadels of power.  At times they seemed a little dazed, wondering how all the feared attempts at blatant rigging by the previous government failed so miserably.  Political maneuvering quickly began and the winners gradually started to step away from their lofty principles and greet some of their lesser brethren.  As the election surprises have worn down, we have entered familiar realms with familiar arguments and familiar logic aimed at ensuring the acquisition of power at the expense of correcting the fundamental anomalies in the power structure. 

Issues of the restoration of the judiciary, the relegation of the presidency, and most of all, the respect and supremacy of the Constitution risk becoming diluted by arguments of ‘realpolitik’ in the post-election scenario.  However, these issues of fundamental significance cannot be tackled by the self-defeating logic of the doctrines of necessity.  That doctrine has created a generation of bastards of who have gone about running Pakistan justifying their illegal actions.  These bastards have used the ubiquitous ‘national interest’ as a sufficient and often inspiring reason for undertaking and justifying blatantly illegal actions to the extent that Article 6 of the constitution becomes conveniently invisible with every act of treason. 

Holding elections and changing the faces that sit in the parliament will not mean anything if the institutional structure of Pakistan’s ruling edifice remains fixated to the past.  We have celebrated the one-year anniversary of the judicial movement.  Though the nation can claim that the goal of an independent judiciary is within grasp, it can just as easily slip through our fingers if we do not back our words and convictions by actions – either within the parliament or on the street.  There is no room left for analysis nor is there a third way out.  We may have differences of opinion on the ideology or definition of Pakistan. But there are no fine points left for seeking an alternative opinion from the cross-examination of the issue of the deposed judges.  An unconditional restoration of the judiciary will be the real step toward an independent judiciary and the first real step for the country to move toward nationhood since the Constitution of 1973. 

Naysayers are still voicing their broken-tape logic arguing for a compromise.  Compromise with the man who committed treason, compromise with those who saluted treason and took oath under the PCO, compromise with the principle that the 1973 Constitution no matter how mauled, is sacrosanct, and compromise the movement for the restoration of judiciary by clipping the wings of the judges who turned a corner and finally stood up for the rule of law. 

The bastards of necessity are whipping their final storm calculating that the winds will subdue the inspired flames of hope.  Arguments calling for maintaining stability, not rocking the boat are laced with threats – threats that have lost their meaning, threats that if carried out will shatter these paper tigers making them.  At crucial times in Pakistan’s history, just when the people had voted for change, these bastards of necessity successfully stepped in to obfuscate the the issues and undermine the desire for change.  Today, we stand at yet another crucial time in history and find the bastards of necessity busy trying to undo the movement for the restoration of the judiciary – a movement more important than the movement for Pakistan. 

Pakistan has no other option but make amends for its failures.  Failures that have been explained away – yet again out of necessity.  The people have been asked to accept acts of unconstitutional take-overs out of necessity.  They have had to bear the dictates of their illegal rulers out of necessity. 

Reverand Martin Luther King once said, “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.” Those who have remained willing collaborators with dictators and their arguments of necessity carry the burden of having perverted justice in Pakistan.  But those who chose to turn the other cheek have no moral stand to hide behind either.  Accepting the unconstitutional acts of the past – particularly those of November 3 – and the PCO judges would amount to yet another turn of the cheek. 

For once there is an increasing collective conscious of people who want to discard the dime-a-Dogar judges so there is an example set for the future Pakistanis that the Constitution cannot be altered through the barrel of the gun.  The dime-a-Dogar collaborators are gasping for survival while their benefactors offer them respirators.  Their end is within sight – it may not come today or on May 12th – but the bastards of necessity will suffocate in their drawing rooms and PCO courtroom chambers as the fury of the masses, public opinion tailored by a free media and ignited by the black coats, is unleashed on them.  By then it’ll for too late for the bastards of the necessity to seek forgiveness and the movement for the independence of the judiciary will have turned that respirator off once and for all. 

- The writer is an office-bearer of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf and the article was written prior to the restoration of the Chief Justice of Pakistan.