Press Gallery
Where are the Courts?
Saeed Minhas
Islamabad: As law and order remain top on the menu of our parliamentarians these days and regardless of what they were churning out for the past many days with proverbial crocodile tears, it seems to be making little difference at any level because ultimately MQM has managed to en-cash their tantrum and the ultimate chaos by bulldozing all efforts of Presidential camp to get a meaningful political share of the financial hub of the country; i.e. Karachi.
The Musharraf system seems to have won over the lethargic nerves of chief minister Sindh, Asfand national party (ANP) and even high-flying leadership of Peoples Party. Not because it’s a better system because for one it suits MQM to keep a grip on the urban as well semi urban centres of Sindh and for two it shows that neither Peoples Party nor ANP or for that matter any other players to Karachi conflict has got any other option than an age old Ziaul Haqi system of governing the modern day politics.
If that’s not the case, then one can argue that why only MQM and C Leaguers developed a handbook for the provincial assembly and why Peoples Party and its leadership did not bother to come up with anything which could get rid of the commissionerate system—which at best is the only way forward for feudal mind-set because it helps control the ‘Thana (police station) Culture’. To remind you all that unfortunately, this culture till to-date forms the basis of our rural politics, which no matter how you look at it still forms about 70 per cent of our national scene.
Look at the big names of Peoples Party and even nationalist parties throughout interior Sindh, their prime concern has always been and still is to ensure a like-minded SHO (Station house Officer) in their areas of influence without realizing that only this rotten mind set has cost them majority of the urban centres not only in Sindh but even in Punjab and elsewhere. Changing demographics and dynamics of the urban politics is neither a cup of tea of the feudal dominated mind set of Peoples Party, its new found brain cells in the form of Chaudhrys and even a lost in the abyss of red sea and red revolution Asfand Nationalists.
Isn’t it unfortunate that the undoubtedly the most popular political party of the country has never had a single local bodies elections held during any of its three previous tenures and even now for three years they are sitting on the corps of these dead local bodies. They have not yet made a single tangible effort to hold the elections at local level. Still we believe that this is the only party which believes in the democracy at grass roots level and in comparison this should neither be taken as an understatement because if we look at other nationalist parties like Noon leaguers or bunch of others they too don’t have a clue about the changing face of the country, where youth is forming more than 50 per cent of the population. Read Samuel P Huntington’s book on clash of civilization and remaking of world order, if any of our political leader has the time and see which rotten political system and ideologies they are trying to preserve in a country where change is bound to come—for good or bad is a secondary issue but it sure is bound to come with teeming youth.
Lip servicing and tangible measures are two different things which usually defines the characteristic of leaders but since these leaders are so engrossed in settling (or may be steeling) the scores with each other—even at the altar of their long standing ideological fortresses—that it seems impossible that the fourth Peoples party government will be able to hold local bodies elections during its current season of survivalist politics.
When it comes to local bodies, one just cannot ignore the criminal role of our judiciary, who too is sitting on dozens of petitions all over the country without abiding by its constitutional responsibilities to ask the federal and provincial governments to move on with the elections at the local level. If our money-making lawyers don’t give it another twist then what anyone can read in the constitution is that under Article 140A
(1) |
Each Province shall, by law, establish a local government system and devolve political, administrative and financial responsibility and authority to the elected representatives of the local governments. |
(2) |
Elections to the local governments shall be held by the Election Commission of Pakistan.] |
If our respectable judges can have time to create an illegal and unconstitutional Human rights cell in the Supreme Court to show off to the people and perhaps their mentors (both local and foreign) that they are moving on as per the new paradigms of the game, perhaps they are forgetting that without doing justice to their responsibilities, they will not be remembered as more than those pawns of a political chess game who at time wants to become either the king or the queen hoping that some kind of lady-luck (or should we say commander-luck) will help them trample their assumed enemies. If that’s not the case than what’s stopping them from taking up all those petitions lying with them for years and getting postponements for one reason or the other. Are they waiting for the movement lawyers to be hired by those who have filed these petitions or some kind of divine avatar?
Over 3000 people have lost lives in recent spate of violence in Karachi within past one month or so, mostly daily wagers and stand-byres while some local commanders of all the political factions have also fallen prey to this war of interests but still if court does not have the guts to take a suo motto action of this situation then they better change their monitoring teams who tell them only about the closure of one sports channel or poor lady gaga carrying some kind of bottles through Rehman Malik’s domains as the biggest threat to the constitutional freedoms. One can only hope from our higher judiciary that their silence in this regard will be remembered in history as criminal as those at the helm of affairs or even those playing this bloody game in the name of their ethnic, political or territorial pride, are so full of themselves that for them it does not matter if a bread-winner of family often gets killed or if the country’s economy comes to grinding halt or for that matter if any foreign hands gets advantage of this to prove us a rouge state and come hounding on us.
Now a bit of lighter side about our MD PTV, our one and only YBM, who after failing to get a leave from Presidential palace has not only decided to go for encashing more of his three per cent dividends from the bankrupt PTV but is also planning to go for Saudi lands to perform umrah. After all where else he can find best guidance than from the House of God. After all our prime Minister Gilani with the house-full of NICL tainted ministers have also ended up seeking the official facility of Umrah. Let’s hope that not only MD finds some right directions and so does the NICL buggers. What will BISP custodians thinking in the meanwhile, we will discuss later because they too have serious issues at hand to deal with because after placing too much focus on recently concluded Azad Kashmir elections, the managers at the BISP seem to have revealed to the top bosses that coffers are empty and need to be refilled for future expediencies—as there are many line up for them in Punjab and even in Sindh. The managers, as we have learned, have found a treasure trove lying unattended for quite some time and have forwarded a proposal to the Presidential palace to help them drain those hidden riches—gathered from mobile phone operators– to fulfill their next assignments. But since Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi is also a contender for those monies so that he can put them to much better use of countering the yellow cab and Ashiana homes schemes of his arch rivals in Punjab, therefore, I will bring you latest updates once the match fixing in this regard is finalized at the hill top.
Leave Your Comments