After sixty-two years of bludgeoning through sequential alleys of darkness, suffering the agonies of military dictatorships, ill-governance, institutionalised crime and widespread corruption that sunk in deep, the country finally saw the advent of an independent judiciary at the culmination of a memorable people’s struggle led by the lawyers’ community. But, within less than one year of the historic event, just when one thought that the country would be finally rid of the innumerable ailments that plagued our body politic, there are conspiracies galore to frustrate the independence of judiciary and replace it with a bench that would swear allegiance not to justice, but to the diktat of the corrupt political leadership against whom there are outstanding cases for a multiple range of crimes and misdemeanours. There are even convictions that render some of them ineligible to hold public offices. This constitutes the core of the unease the incumbent leadership is gripped with and the reason behind the weaving of devious and Machiavellian plans to blow away the promise of justice and the proclamation of the rule of law for all, without discrimination.

After the Supreme Court (SC) judgement declaring the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) void ab initio, one thought the government had only two options: it could accept it and take steps for its implementation, thus running the risk of some of its cronies being forced to quit, or it could appeal the judgement and wait for the court’s order. Expectedly, and true to its track record of the last two years replete with broken promises and unkept commitments, what the PPP leadership is doing is something quite devilish: together with appealing the judgement and issuing loud proclamations of accepting the SC adjudication, it is playing every conceivable trick to subvert it. The prime minister appears to be completely out of sync with his ministers and aides who don’t let an opportunity slip by of criticising what the judiciary has done. Strangely, the only supporting voices that the ruling concoction has been able to elicit publicly relate not to the legality and constitutionality of the judgment, but the credentials of the judiciary that has passed it. I heard someone say in blistering anger on one of the private television channels recently: “It is the same judiciary that had legalised the rule of a dictator”. Does one infer that, if an institution has erred once, it is incumbent upon it to keep erring for all times? Quite simply, it makes a mockery of reason and logic.

On the face of it, while the government has taken no cognisable step for implementing the decision, it has, in a fit of anger and frustration, returned the chief justice’s recommendations with regard to the elevation of Justice Saqib Nisar of the Lahore High Court and the appointment of the much-respected Justice Ramday as an ad hoc judge of the apex court. Concurrently, the lackeys and sycophants of the government are consistently engaged in efforts to bring disrepute to the judiciary by insinuating that, in effect, the SC adjudication is an assault on the system and an effort to subvert democracy.

Much has been written on the fallacy of equating the fate of an ‘individual’ with either the ‘system’ or ‘democracy’. There are hardly any buyers of that preposition. In the event the government persists with its current attitude, as it is most likely to, what are the consequences that it might have to confront and the ingrained dangers that it may entail for the institutions of the state? There would be a sequence of three steps that the SC is constitutionally empowered to take. First, the government would have to face the contempt of court proceedings. The SC could, concurrently or thereafter, directly order the relevant secretaries of the government, including its law secretary, to take steps for implementing the NRO order in totality and reporting to the court. It could also, under article 190 of the Constitution, call upon the army to extend help to have the order implemented. These are potent and dangerous weapons that the SC could use if left with no alternative. Would the government be comfortable with that eventuality?

The current rule of the PPP government makes for a sordid sequence of petty tricks (and I am not one to believe that they were not pre-meditated), each time doling out a promise of doing something to ease the pressure, followed by a deceitful and arrogant refusal to honour its commitment and, instead, asking for further negotiations and more time. The restoration of judiciary came about not as a gesture of goodwill by Mr Zardari. If that were to be the case, he should have ordered it immediately after the PPP government took charge. He did not because he did not want to. Instead, it came about at the culmination of the lawyers’ movement that resulted in a long march heading for Islamabad. Paradoxically, it was the chief of army staff (COAS) who had to intervene to stop what may have been a harrowing bloodbath, and pave the way for the prime minister’s speech containing the announcement of the restoration of the judiciary. Is the PPP leadership heading for another showdown? Instead of giving in voluntarily to the writ of law, would it instead prefer to be ‘ordered’ to do so as it has been in the past?

The picture has never been more vivid than it appears today. It is a corruption-tainted leadership with no legitimacy that rules the country. Not that the leaderships in the past have not been corrupt, but the difference is that some members of the incumbent leadership, including its president, have serious cases with sustainable evidence to nail them. Ostensibly, there is also a standing conviction that has led to Mr Zardari’s eligibility to be president questioned in the SC. With an approach goaded with an evil intent of non-compliance and sabotage, the PPP leadership would only expedite the advent of undesirable eventualities that it may live to regret.

The writer is an independent political analyst based in Lahore. Email: raoofhasan@ hotmail.com