In Pakistan, the judiciary seems more engaged with the financial issues rather than economic rights of the poor. The Supreme Court is obsessed with its original jurisdiction which gives it the power to hold trials in cases involving people holding public offices for corruption  "The surface quiet of the Supreme Court was shattered by the scream of an ordinary citizen on Monday this week. Lawyers, politicians, famous plaintiffs and defendants were stopped short in their tracks when Asad Munir, a dismissed police constable from Multan, shouted 'I want justice, give me justice', before he set himself on fire inside the premises of the Supreme Court". Daily Dawn reported while quoting him pleading as, "For the last three years I have been running from court to court but I am still waiting for justice", Munir screamed as he tripped and fell down the stairs to the court building entrance. He was still on fire. This is the first time that a person tries to kill himself in the premises of the Pakistan Supreme Court for justice. With his act of desperation, Munir succeeded to attract the attention of worthy judges not only for his cause but also for the plight of other ordinary people who are struggling to get justice "in this era of suo motu cases." "Please, transfer my case to any bench other than Court No.1 (presided by the Chief Justice himself)", a lawyer pleading the case of an ordinary litigant was heard requesting one of the benches of the Supreme Court when he was asked by the court to choose the next hearing date. Ghalib Khan, a politician who contested the 2008 elections from a reserved seat of the National Assembly from South Waziristan and now fighting an election appeal before the Supreme Court against his opponent says, "I spent not a single penny on my election, but have become bankrupt nevertheless." He has been regularly visiting the Supreme Court and following one such visit he told the reporters after his case was adjourned once again without hearing, "What's the use of a decision in an election matter, even though favourable, after three years." This is what the litigants, hoping for justice, feel when there is much-trumped talk of judicial activism in Pakistan. The frustrated president of the Supreme Court Bar Association, Asma Jehangir, deplores the tendency to adjourn cases, often after several hours of waiting. This is a cause of perpetual anguish for out-station legal counsels and the litigants, she says. The common citizens, however, are perturbed when they come to know that the chief justice himself has so much time to take suo motu notice on recovery of two bottles of liquor from Atiqa Odho, a celebrity from the showbiz. Justice is generally understood to mean what is right, fair, appropriate and deserved. Justice is achieved when an unjust act is redressed and the victim feels whole again. A common representation of justice is a blind-folded woman, the Goddess of Justice, holding a set of scales. Justice is often used interchangeably with the word "fairness". In any situation, be it in a court room or at the workplace, we want to be treated fairly. Very recently, in an ebook, Gods of Justice, Kevin hosey has introduced superheroes as a primal force. The book is thrilling collection of ten original short stories featuring brand new superheroes in action-packed adventures. We are living in the era of Gods of justice and witnessing thrillers every now and then. The superheroes have been discovering mysteries of the "plundered billions". The Gods of justice are not blind-folded. They stare with eyes open wide, not for common consent, but coercion. During last decades the judiciary in the USA became active in economic issues related with economic rights established by the Constitution. Since many a country with a transitional political and economic system continues treating its constitution as an abstract legal documents disengaged from the economic policy of the state, practice of judicial review of economic acts of executive and legislative branches began to grow. In the 1980s, the Supreme Court of India for almost a decade had been encouraging public interest litigation on behalf of the poor and oppressed by using a very board interpretation of several articles of the Indian Constitution. In Pakistan, the judiciary seems more engaged with the financial issues rather than economic rights of the poor. The Supreme Court is obsessed with its original jurisdiction which gives it the power to hold trials in cases involving people holding public offices for corruption. A number of times the worthy judges have declared that they would get the looted money back. So far, the judicial activism has put a PPP federal minister, Syed Hamid Saeed Kazmi, behind the bar; Interior Minister, Rehman Malik, presented himself before the Lahore High Court a number of times; two or three attorney generals, a chairman of National Accountability Bureau and five directors general of the Federal Investigation Agency have been removed. Recently, Director General Rangers and Inspector General Police of Sindh have also lost their jobs because of judicial activism. Intriguingly, the Supreme Court and Lahore High Court are more active in taking suo motu actions, largely against the PPP. The high courts in other three provinces rarely take any such action. The critics allege the judicial activism is selective. The petitions against corruption scandals and perceived constitutional deviations by the (PPP) government are considered part of campaign of politician bashing, and against the PPP-led coalition government. The former chief justice of the Lahore High Court, Khwaja Sharif, once in his comments asked the PPP to quit the Punjab government if the party had objections to the appointment of Rana Maqbool as the provincial secretary prosecution. Rana Maqbool is a former IG Police, Sindh, and declared absconder as he is wanted by Sindh Police in a case allegedly torturing Asif Ali Zardari when he was in jail in Karachi. On 23 February, 2010, the Wall Street Journal reported, "Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, the country's erstwhile hero, is the leading culprit in an unfolding constitutional drama…having evidently embarked on a campaign to undermine, and perhaps, even oust President Asif ali Zardari." Ali Ahmad Kurd, the firebrand leader of the lawyers' movement in 2009 and former president of the Supreme Court Bar Association, while commenting on NRO judgement, said, "the judgement appeared to be based on newspaper headlines and talk shows of private TV channels." He said the maxim of "justice hurried is justice buried" would turn out to be true in many cases. In February, 2006, the Carnegie Endowment in its policy brief number 45 on Pakistan suggested "enlarging the pool of elites and creating alternative center of power". Now, we see alternative centers of power challenging the people's power in the country, and judiciary is one of them.  | Mazhar Arif is a senior journalist, media critic, researcher, writer and people's rights activist presently working as Executive Director, Society for Alternative Media and Research (SAMAR), an organization seeking space for voices of the voiceless in the media and engaged with promoting media literacy to enable readers, viewers and listeners to understand and analyze media contents. |
Dr. S. Akhtar Ehtisham
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All religions try to take over the establishment and if they fail, they collaborate with it, be it feudal or capitalist. |
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