Theatre Of The Absurd

NOVEMBER 28 will go down as one of the most bizarre days in the history of Pakistan—its judiciary in particular. At 9.40 am, the five-member Supreme Court bench headed by chief justice Sajjad Ali Shah had just started hearing the contempt petition against prime minister Nawaz Sharif. His counsel, top Pakistani lawyer S.M. Zafar, was arguing that before the case against the embattled prime minister could be taken up, the status of the bench hearing the case itself needed to be settled. He had been talking for little under an hour when suddenly everyone sitting in Courtroom No. 1 heard some rather strange sounds outside.

As Sajjad described it in an order later in the evening, "a big commotion was heard as if there was a riot outside the courtroom and slogans were being raised. It appeared that a big mob wanted to rush into the courtroom". Just then a journalist managed to gain entry into the courtroom and shouted that the mob was trying to get in. The court was immediately adjourned, but some members of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League caught hold of the journalist and roughed him up for forewarning the chief justice.

Unbeknown to those in the courtroom, the police had merely watched as people from the crowd which had gathered outside the court premises had clambered over the gate and entered the court building. Some of them, in fact, climbed onto the roof of the entrance of the building. They were heard shouting slogans against Sajjad, with some calling him a 'dog'.

For his part, Sajjad wrote to President Farooq Leghari that the army or paramilitary forces be deployed at the Supreme Court and at the residences of the four other judges hearing the contempt petition against the prime minister. Referring to the judgements of the Quetta and Peshawar benches of the Supreme Court, which had held his appointment as chief justice in 'abeyance', Sajjad said this amounted to misconduct and the matter should be referred to the Supreme Judicial Council. He blamed "interested quarters" for the divide amongst the judges of the Supreme Court, adding: "I do not want to make any comments on the conduct and attitude motivating such actions, which smack of defiance and rebellion."

 The chief justice mentioned in his letter that he was informed that the government had made 'arrangements' to bring people from Lahore and other parts in buses to stage a big demonstration outside the court. All this, predictably, had Sharif's government worried.

But information minister Mushahid Hussain tried to seize the initiative by calling a press conference before that and condemning the attack. He apologised on behalf of the government and said that the matter would be investigated. He parried questions about his party members roughing up the journalist who had raised the alarm in the first place. Later in the evening, treasury benches passed a resolution in the National Assembly criticising the attack.

Curiously, these developments took place a day after a flurry of meetings, which at different times involved the president, the chief justice, the prime minister, the army chief, the speaker of the National Assembly and the chairman of the Senate. Sharif, who had been attending an international conference of Pakistanis from overseas on November 27, had left in a hurry to meet the army chief.

That evening the city was rife with rumours that the army chief, General Jehangir Karamat, had prevailed upon Leghari to issue a notification appointing a new chief justice. In fact, after many days, members of Parliament belonging to the Pakistan Muslim League looked slightly more relaxed. Mushahid Hussain went on record to say that things had been sorted out and that the president would appoint Justice Ajmal Mian, next in seniority to Sajjad (the latter had in fact superceded Ajmal). In the event, Mushahid's optimism and that of his partymen proved to be premature.

Pakistan is currently beset by a constitutional crisis that has paralysed normal life. The country is clearly divided over who is wrong and who is wronged. Many feel that the chief justice is genuinely fighting for an independent judiciary. Yet others believe that the prime minister is in the right. But the fact is that the country is paying a heavy piece for this discord. As Eqbal Ahmed, one of Pakistan's noted academics wrote prophetically sometime back: "Turf wars are notorious for destroying the contested turf."

But after the June 27 spectacle, when a ruling party member had created a scene in court, the English daily

Dawn wrote: "To dust off a tired cliche, if what is happening in Pakistan at the moment were to be made the subject of a Hollywood thriller, the plot would be rejected for being a grotesque or surrealistic ...the point is not just to deplore but to see whether anything can be done about the crisis which is beginning to imperil the very foundations of democracy."

But this is not the first time that such doubts about democracy in Pakistan have arisen. Now that the country faces this deadlock between the prime minister and the chief justice, with the president ranged against the former, a heated debate has ensued about the role the army can play. General Karamat had recently cut short a tour abroad and earned a reprieve for all the warring factions. He urged Sharif not to push the impeachment motion against Leghari and the privilege motion against Sajjad. Subsequently, the chief justice had put off the cases against Sharif for a week, which it was hoped would be enough time for things to cool off.

As soon as the Quetta bench of the Supreme Court held Sajjad's appointment "in abeyance" on November 26, things started moving in Islamabad. At 1 am on November 27, a meeting at the President's House was attended by the General Karamat, Sharif, National Assembly speaker Ilahi Bux Soomro, Senate chairman Wasim Sajjad, law minister Khalid Anwar, and, according to some reports, even the ISI director-general.

LATER that morning, there was another meeting at the same venue, attended by Leghari, Karamat and Sajjad. That lasted for about two hours, after which Sajjad left for the Supreme Court under army escort to hear the case related to the Quetta bench order. He struck it down, but not before some ruling party members had created a scene in the court. Some time later, the meeting between Sharif and Karamat took place.

The Pakistani army's role in resolving any crisis in recent years has been decisive. In 1993, the then army chief, General Abdul Waheed Kakkar, had intervened and forced both then prime minister, Sharif, and the then president, Ghulam Ishaq Khan, to quit.

This time again, General Karamat has had a fairly high profile role. In fact, very unusually, a military spokesman broke the customary silence and con-firmed, on November 25, that the army chief had intervened in the clash of the institutions after cutting short his tour abroad. The army chief, it was stated, had acted in the "national interest to gain respite from the headlong rush into an irretrievable constitutional crisis". Insisting this was only a tactic to buy time for all, he denied the army had any political demands and "power sharing requirements". By any standards this was not a routine statement. The military spokesmen in the past have been rather taciturn.

But just a day after this statement, the country was faced by the split not just between the prime minister on one side and the president and the judiciary on the other, but also within the judiciary. The judiciary in Pakistan has had a chequered history. It has been battered and pushed around, but open rebellion by some judges against the chief justice is absolutely unprecedented. Sajjad saw the Quetta order as a virtual revolt.

As the military spokesman's statement indicated, the onus for resolving the present crisis lies with the state institutions. Till late on November 28, it was obvious that the army, while being involved in the process to resolve the crisis, is still keeping a polite distance, leaving matters in the hands of the other protagonists.

Significantly, not many people in Islamabad believe that the army wants to take over power. As a senior parliamentarian close to Sharif pointed out, the country is facing serious economic problems, and it would hardly be to the army's advantage to seize power. Besides, a military takeover will not be acceptable internationally.

As for Sharif, his opponents feel that he has bitten off more than he can chew and that his game is up. But Nusrat Javeed, a columnist for

The News , disagrees, noting that Sharif is being written off rather early and that he too has a few things up his sleeve. In fact, Sharif's supporters say the latest row was started by the chief justice, who refused to cool off even after the government conceded his demand for the appointment of five judges to the Supreme Court. They agree that the prime minister should have conceded it right at the beginning, since he had to give in later anyway. They are also willing to concede that he showed too much hurry and need not have taken on all the institutions so early in his tenure.

But now things seem to have gone too far. Already plagued by a litany of economic ills, Pakistan is losing billions of rupees more everyday because of the political uncertainty. The country is rife with conspiracy theories—each one as wild as the previous one. Someone and something has to give. As academic Eqbal Ahmed wrote: "Ego-driven squabbles are ugly and petty affairs. When indulged in by people in power, they inflict incalculable collateral damages on state and society." Is anyone listening?