These Lawyers Seem Somewhat Above the Law

Gill sahib,

(Sentencing Z.A. Bhutto to death at the instance of Zia-ul-Haq was the most scandalous mockery of law in the history of Pakistan.)

The death sentence to Bhoot is one of the few success stories of the rule of law in South Asia. The only instance where a really high and mighty was successfully tried and executed for a crime he had actually committed.

Regards

"Britain and the US are right to have got fed up with Musharraf and his brand of military rule, swatting at problem after problem without any strategy.....Musharraf has won eight years’ support from the West by arguing that a good general is better than a bad politician ..... At this point, even a terrible politician would be better than a general who has lost his way, if only because it would clear the path for future politicians who could be better." (Times of London)

from bbc fo today

Perhaps the incident in which a whole convoy of soldiers - more than 100, according to the army spokesman - was kidnapped by the very people they were going to fight against, in the inhospitable Waziristan area? And that too without a single shot fired from either side!

map

Maybe the army's insistence that its troops were not kidnapped; they'd simply lost their way and would show up some time soon!

Or the statement from the alleged kidnappers: "We are not torturing them or anything. We just ask them to parade around and do the military drill for our amusement," an individual claiming to be the Taleban spokesman told the BBC.

A great day for pak army.

Once again the pak army has repulsed an air attack on pakistan. The aicraft was surrounded by the elite pak military units and the human bomb sent away to saudi, another successful operation by the pak army, in the traditions of 1965 war with india a grand success.

YLH where are you, what would chuck yaeger would have said about this great military operation against an airborne attack.

That is also the day ( see bbbc news of today ) where the tribals have stated that the captured soldiers are not tortured, but are made to parade as an entertainment for teh tribals, because they have never seen any such antics by the fighting men.

A great day for pakistanis to remember, a day of double success, nawaz is gone, another tiger niazi in the making, this time from teh westen front military surrender by pak soldiers.

Ok, Manto, my knowledge of legal matters is zilch.

Dear Amansandhu,

Suo Motu notice is by the Court and is not moved. Last I checked I was not on the bench ...

Doctrine of necessity.

Ever since the great legal fraternity of pakistan created the " doctrine of necessity" and upheld by the courts, constitution of pakistan was dead. Every military ruler siezed power, changed the constitution and the courts said it was all fine.

This can betraced to teh creation of pakistn itself, one man said pakistan should be created and the british colonialists agreed because it part of their divide and rule policy.

Pakistan has no freedom fihjters, no one is honoured for fighting for teh creation of pakistan, it is all one man on a typewriter.

The judges have followed the same principle, one man can change constitution, can do what he wants , and they have the same notion from the british days. Pakistani lawyers and judges are not worth talking about they have no idea of teh rule of law. No other country or legal fratenity will accept the law of necessity.

In India there is a general acceptance that there are limits even to what the legislature can amend, broadly defined as the essntial features of teh constutuion and in pakistan one general can change anything and the suprem court judges have said again and again that it is OK. To talk about constitution in pakistan is a pretense, teh paksi trying to pretend to be a civilised. Pathetic.

I remember seeing Naem Bokhari on PTV. He came across as a dignified and refined person. Tout or not, the lawyers had no business to beat him up.

"Will someone consider a suo moto notice to restore the prestige of a district court?"

Will you do it Manto.

In the land of the pure, historically, all such movements, whether religious or secular in nature, to liberate the masses and bring about an enlightened, effective and law abiding civil society have been interesting… and that’s all the recent endeavors of legal fraternity and religious extremists are…. Interesting! The problem is that such interesting movements soon becomes boring and the result is not enlightenment… it is more depression.

Traditionally, such movements have a missing key ingredient… Real time experience and tangible benefits for ordinary people who, otherwise, do not have any vested interest in such movements. On the other hand, people with vested interests in these movements, the elite if you like, do not like things that are sweaty and agonizing such as asking the legal fraternity to actually abide by the law of the land or asking the Mullahs to abide by Quran and Sunnah. They have no stomach for the grinding, crushing horror of putting in practice what they preach… well, in case of Mullahs, the preaching part is also messed up!

Real participation in your own life is the only real thing… is that on offer anywhere in Pakistan?

Fairdinkum

...correction ... 'decided on the former' ...

#5 Posted by Ras,

Justice Naseem Hasan Shah (the later CJ) is on record as saying that if they hadn't upheld the verdict, Zia would have abrogated the constitution and rolled up the entire judiciary.

But there's a technical point too. Yahya Bakhtyar made a blunder when he did not include a life sentence in his plea as a compromise. The courts could only hang or acquit. Of-course they decided on the latter. This blunder is the source of the later bitter criticism of Bakhtyar by the Bhuttos.

Re: #3 Posted by freethinker who wrote"

" Sentencing Z.A. Bhutto to death at the instance of Zia-ul-Haq was the most scandalous mockery of law in the history of Pakistan."

Gill Sahib,

The same thought did cross my mind.

Where was the judiciary then? People of my generation

remember that 4 to 3 decision very well. But what does

mystify me today is this sudden growth of judicial ballzz!

It is a welcome sign but I just have to ask...

“The chaos that has ruled Pakistan’s periphery for a while is fast encroaching upon the centre. “Transformationists” lead by Dr Ayesha Siddiqa are still thinking that extremists are some fictional creatures out of GHQ’s old cartoon movies; …. More than ever before, we need to restore the authority and prestige of the district courts..”

The article looked very good until Mr. Pirzada got to this point: “we need to restore the authority and prestige of the district courts”

This is like Khoda Phaarr, nikalaa chuha and looked liked bj.

Though it is not really important, but District courts have to restore their own authority and finds ways restore prestige.

Perhaps unbeknownst to Mr. pirzada, he has raised some very important issues that ail Pakistani society.

Fanaticism, extremism, radicalism of every kind is dangerous and spread like plague in such a short time that before we know it, there are more coffins than the hands to bury them. The spread of hideous ideologies and the–isms was faster in the 20th century due to a huge jump in the ability to communicate. With new medium of communications taking over the world rapidly, the chances are that any ideology could possibly have more supporters in a shorter period of time. Unlike the old days when snail mail controlled the thoughts and a press or a newspaper was required to spread any ideology of hate. Now with TV, satellite, cables and the Net, the idea spreads fast and you never know where the followers are located.

Fascism took over Europe so quickly and in such mammoth proportions that before it was finally defeated, some 50 million odds had died. And fascist did not even have the new methods of communication at hand now. There had never been a shortage of extremists in every era but the new century has brought about the most rabid, pervasive and invasive extremist.

The profile of the extremists is not some young, half educated, and unemployed psychopaths anymore. The new extremists are led by the half educated psychopaths but the followers could be just ordinary people whose core beliefs about religion, nationalism and plain old economic exploitation could be browbeaten in to an army of followers that are willing to do any thing and go any length without really comprehending the reasons for what they are doing. In the old days, a preacher had to physically go to the people to make speeches and train them in to the ideology, now with all the new media facilities, a person can live in caves but can still dominate the wavelengths, wire, wifi, cable and satellite channels.

The rise in extremism is not confined to Pakistan. In the old colonial days the third world countries or the colonies were mostly immune from large scale extremism.

After the dehumanization of the Jews in Europe, it seems that extreme ideologies now have made home in the third world countries. From the Pol Pots or the Khmer Rouge of the 60s to the Rwandan genocide of the 90s to the Gujarat massacre in 2002, the slow annihilation of Palestinians by Israelis to the genocide in Iraq, we now have reached a point where several countries in one geographical neighborhood are in the grips of the terror meisters and the extremist.

From the Hindutva followers in India to Jewish settlers in the West Bank to Shiite sympathizer in Iran to the Taliban in Afghanistan and the Islamic fundamentalist of Pakistan and to some extent even the religious right in the US, all are preaching the ideologies of hate. They have the means to not only solicit excessive number of followers but also wage verbal and when necessary physical wars to subjugate others less fortunate or less militarily equipped communities.

The slow death of liberalism continues…and it is not confined to Pakistan only.

"Might is right" is the only law (?) that is recognized in Pakistan. Recently, there was a weak ray of optimism that the law courts might effect the "writ of law" in the country but that too seems to be evaporating in thin air. If the lawyers fail to show any respect to the "due process of law," who else will?
Sentencing Z.A. Bhutto to death at the instance of Zia-ul-Haq was the most scandalous mockery of law in the history of Pakistan. Pakistan has been wading from one crisis to the next. Will there be any end to these crises and normalcy prevail in the country?

MOhammad Akram Gill

Law breaking of any and all kinds is regretable. What happened today to Nawaz Sharif is the biggest example of this.

I just find the timing of this article odd as Naeem Bukhari was beaten up more than a month ago.

What has happened to Bokharis is the indictive of the nature of things to come in our society. The attacks on oppressive army, corrupt police, and haramkhor public officials has become the order of the day.

In the same week, when Bokhari was roughed up, a number of moulvis also got beaten up. Those moulvis belonged to the so-called Federation of Madrassas, a sort of board of education for madrassas. These moulvis were among the negotiation teams who were mediating between occupation forces in Pakistan and Ghazi AbdulRashid Ghazi Shaheed. After the Islamabad school massacre by occupation army, these moulvis were percveived as sell outs and got thoroughly beat up by madrassa students. The students also refused to listen to them.

Speaking about "sell-outs", Bokhari was in fact offered the post of Minister of Oil & Gas Exploration in exchange for his services rendered to the dictator. O&G is one of the most lucrative ministeries were hundereds of millions of dollars of funds are funnelled into the pockets of corrupt government officials and powers to be in the name of "exploration". All the minister has to do is to show up once in the assembly and declare that "abhi tail nahin nikla - laikin pakistan maa'dni doulat se mala mala mulk hay". As a matter of fact all of these crooks need to be lined up against the wall and shot thru a firing squad. One day Bokhari will thank heaven that he got off easy.