Retired Justice Nasir Aslam Zahid, the former judge of the Supreme Court of Pakistan and Chief Justice of the Sindh High Court, is of the opinion that the Dec 16, 2009, decision of the Supreme Court against the NRO targets a few politicians.
Issued by General Musharraf, the NRO provided legal amnesty to numerous government officials and businessmen who were faced with corruption charges.
Nasir Aslam Zahid, while identifying the decision to overturn the NRO as historical landmark, noted that the decision was selective in targeting some politicians, and would, therefore, not lead to the elimination of corruption from all sections of Pakistani society.
There are possibilities that the judges, in forthcoming detailed judgment, would argue that the NRO and consequent nomination of Asif Ali Zardari for presidency is a violation of the articles 62 and 63 and that he should not had been nominated.
Having recognized the merit of the argument, Justice Nasir suggests that the decision targets selected individuals, rather than the Pakistani community as a whole. Therefore, while this ruling is commendable, these judgments cannot and do not eliminate corruption.
Only 25 politicians have been covered in this decision, as well as some businessmen. But there remain other institutions and people who are not covered by this ruling. Indeed, no action has been taken against the judiciary, the military, and the bureaucracy. Some actions have been taken at small levels, for example, against small revenue officials, but nothing has been done at the higher levels. From a human rights perspective, a popular judgment is beneficial to a community only if its impact can be felt across the board.
It is important to note that the period taken for corruption in the NRO was from January 1, 1986 to October 12, 1999, when there were political governments. Through the NRO, General Musharraf wanted to show that whenever the army is in power, there are no charges of corruption and no political victimization. But when there are political governments, the victimization begins and false cases are initiated against political parties.
Filed under: Corruption Tagged: | Corruption, NRO, Pakistan
The decision by apex court was purported all over however it will neither help the government (in the short run) or the democratic process in the long run if the judiciary also wants to ‘run the show’.
It might be a historic move by some of my fellows but I deem that history has certainly been made but perhaps in a subtly different way than how it is being projected in the media. Everything was opposite of claims of Media and some self righteous groups. Karachi came out with a unanimous resolution in favor of President, Quetta did not think much of it, and Peshawar was mum. If it was so popular decision by the court why it was not welcomed from all the quarters of the country?. Everyone including incumbent Govt wants accountability and elimination of corruption but the way Supreme Court chose was indeed a fault line.
It is surprising that all 17 judges arrived at exactly the same conclusion in their judgment. Even the July 20, 2007 verdict had a 10-3 split. It certainly beats one’s mind, if not senses, that an issue as controversial as the NRO would result in such a show of ‘solidarity’ amongst the brother judges of the full bench. Again, the judges invoked a clause, among others, to nullify the NRO, which was essentially introduced by a military dictator to control the political system in the country. judiciary could have scrapped NRO with simple clauses like article 25 and there was no need of invoking controversial 63 F which found its way into constitution due to a dictator.
If parliament over the years has been unable to remove it from the Constitution, the least the Supreme Court could do was abstain from invoking the said clause and thus providing it any ‘legitimacy’.
Judiciary must keep in mind that we have enough history to show us that replacing incumbent democratic government with another institution has left us with bigger problems to contend with. Let us not shove ourselves in that direction again.
It is only by a Punjabi to support a Punjabi politian.