Ramanisblog

Tag: Democracy

  • Extracting Political Decisions from the Judiciary in Pakistan

    Couple of points.It is naive to believe that there is’Change’ in Pakistan.What change?Army and ISI are calling the shots with no accountability.Elected representatives(?) have been forced or allow themselves to be forced to rubber stamp a predetermined deal involving two corrupt and exiled politicians.The only change is the perception that there is an illusion of change.The only change is the guilty and corrupt are allowed to rule the mute and simple people of Pakistan with out their consent.
    Secondly,the statement that there can be a transition through ‘negotiated terms’, a very polite way of expressing wheeling and dealing.Is this the way to run a democracy?
    Thirdly, the obsession with foreign approval or censure.You run your country as your people want it.When you are undecided, foreign powers interfere;you accept their help ;now there is nothing as free lunch;you have to accept their terms because of your unwillingness or inability to govern yourself.;suddenly you wake up and find you are under foreign dictates when it is too late.
    Either people in general and intelligentsia in particular should decide the course of action to restore real democracy.Where are the lawyers who have forced Musharaff to climb down?Run out of steam?Take the action to its logical conclusion of restoring real democracy,sans deals and foreign interference.
    If allowed to drift, there seems to be no other option excepting revolution with inevitable bloodshed.Also history has many examples of dictatorship passing into democracy with blood shed,French Revolution being the prime example.(the difference was it was from Dictatorial Monarchs)
    Story:

    By Ahmed Nadeem Gahla

    A study of transformation from military dictatorship to democracy around the world would reveal that there are two possible ways. Either it is achieved through a popular revolution or by negotiations between political forces and dictators.

    The former invariably demolishes the entire system and mostly involves bloodshed putting a new system in place while the later allows the change to happen within the prevailing system based upon certain negotiated terms.

    These terms might not necessarily meet the international laws and judicial norms as it is always a middle path.

    The return of democracy in Pakistan after a long period of military dictatorship is a unique example of such ‘negotiated change’. The terms reached with the help of international power brokers and guarantors ensured withdrawal of politically motivated cases, return of exiled leadership and shedding of uniform by Parvez Musharraf in return for re-election. After assassination of Benazir Bhutto, the international and domestic pressure became so immense that Parvez Musharraf not only have to accept the condition of fair elections but also have to negotiate for an exit in return for protection from prosecution for unconstitutional actions. A civilian dictator might not get such a deal.

    Another option available to political forces at that time was to over through dictatorship by a popular revolution. Let us not forgets that the world community would not allow a nuclear armed nation to reach the point of bloody revolution. Especially, when there are more chances of falling in to a civil war hijacked by religious extremists than overthrowing a dictator. Without a negotiated change, how popular a movement might, it is not possible to remove a military backed dictator without bloodshed. We have witnessed the return of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif from exile, who came back in violation of deal reached on guarantees of our ‘friends’ in Middle East and was sent back by next flight. Despite the promises of a million people’s reception by right wing parties, not a dozen were able to break the security arrangements and show up at airport to receive their leader. Even after Nawaz Sharif was forcibly deported to Saudi Arabia, establishment successfully countered public reaction avoiding any law and order situation. Obviously, possibilities of overthrowing dictator’s thorough protests are not that bright.

    Unable to fight the powerful military establishment which has far more guns and tanks on their disposal, negotiating was the only option available to Benazir Bhutto. Much debated and controversial National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) promulgated by former dictator Parvez Musharraf paved way for return of Benazir Bhutto and later for Mian Nawaz Sharif, without the fear of being arrested or deported. The cases withdrawn against Benazir Bhutto and her husband Asif Ali Zardari under NRO were registered during regime of former prime minister Mian Nawaz Sharif and remained unproved during lengthy trial and detention of Asif Ali Zardari for eleven years. Both Mian Nawaz Sharif and Saif ur Rehman, the former head of National Accountability Bureau appointed by him have repeatedly confessed that these cases were false and cooked on pressure of establishment which wanted to malign the name of Benazir Bhutto and her family. How big price it is to move towards a democratic process by withdrawing these fabricated cases?

    This fact alone leaves no space for political leadership to avoid its responsibility of revoking these politically motivated cases through parliamentary legislation. Mr Sharif and MQM should have taken a bolder stand in parliament while they have repeatedly expressed in public that these cases are false. However, the political leadership is trying to avoid their responsibility to please the establishment, thus pushing the matter of NRO to superior judiciary to decide. Superior courts around the world avoid interfering in to political matters despite having jurisdiction over such issues under the ‘political question doctrine.’ The purpose of this self imposed restriction is to distinguish the role of judiciary from those of the legislature and the executive. Political questions include the ratification of constitutional amendments, conduct of foreign policy and administrative actions of governments. However there is no ridged rule and a court might choose to go ahead in case the ‘demands for a fair trial and criminal justice outweighed the political question doctrine’ as ruled by a US Federal Court in case of President Richards Nixon.

    The exception set in Richard Nixon case is widely referred to and abused to neutralize the political rivals in dictatorships and developing democracies where establishments use superior judiciary as a tool to further their own agendas.

    The superior judiciary in Pakistan has been a victim of this power game by dictators and political leadership on cost of its integrity and reputation. Judiciary has lost a lot in terms of legitimacy of its decisions while playing power game, from the death sentence of ZA Bhutto being the worst and unrecoverable stigma on its face to providing cover to unconstitutional takeover of Parvez Musharraf. The same superior judiciary in offices today miserably failed to dispense justice to Asif Ali Zardari in eleven long years and convicted Mian Nawaz Sharif under establishment’s pressure. With restoration of Chief Justice and sacked judges through a popular movement, the judiciary has won its independence but its impartiality is still to be tested. Should judiciary once again be dragged to deliver political decisions while political leadership lacks the courage to take bold stand on its publically confessed mistakes of past?

    It might not be out of context to mention that first Prime Minister of Pakistan from Sindh was assassinated in Punjab and those in establishment involved in cover up of his murder were blessed with huge estates. ZA Bhutto, the second Prime Minister from same province, was assassinated through a judicial verdict. The third and fourth Prime Ministers Muhammad Khan Junejo and Benazir Bhutto respectively, were unconstitutionally sacked and could not get justice from superior judiciary. Once again the superior judiciary is being dragged in to power game to remove President Zardari from the office for which he has been elected with overwhelming majority from four Provincial Assemblies, the National Assembly and the Senate. The plan to extract a political decision on technical grounds to remove an elected President is not going to strengthen the institution of judiciary or democracy. Especially when the necessary link of ‘demands for a fair trial and criminal justice outweighed the political question doctrine’ as set in Richard Nixon’s case is missing in NRO after confessions of Mr. Sharif and Saif ur Rehman. Will court call Mr Sharif and record his statement while deciding the NRO, and if not, what would be the legitimacy of such decision?

    Apart from the outcome of political circus to be staged in superior judiciary, those advising President Zardari to face courts have to realize the fact that he was in continuous imprisonment for eleven years.

    His detention is longer than the period of life imprisonment in Pakistan. Even if convicted in cases against him the sentence would have been lesser than imprisonment already undergone by Mr Zardari.

    Although according to the judgments of superior judiciary under section 497 of CRPC, any person who is under detention for more than two years and whose trial is not concluded would become entitled to bail. The very same relief of bail was not extended to President Zardari for eleven long years by the superior judiciary. Under the Criminal Laws of Pakistan, if prosecution fails to bring sufficient evidence against accused for a reasonably long period of time, the accused has a right to request the court to drop charges. Mr Zardari’s applications before superior courts for that relief also failed to earn him justice in eleven year. Should not people have reservations that Mr. Zardari will get justice this time from judiciary while even today most of the judges in chair are the same who were unable to dispense justice to him in past?

    Even after restoration of Judges, several questions are being raised about its performance even by leadership of the lawyer’s movement. While Mr. Sharif and Altaf Hussain has advised President Zardari to face the courts, both leaders are reluctant to welcome the decision in Roedad Khan’s petition for ISI’s money politics and a judicial enquiry in to 12th May’s massacre respectively. There is a prescribed process for removal of elected President in constitution, if political leadership thinks that Mr. Zardari is either ineligible or unfit for the job, it should resort to constitutional remedy through impeachment motion. Once again, dragging judiciary in to power game would be an unpleasant and undesired burden for institution which still has to go through the test of impartiality and establish its lost credibility. While all other institutions have been deteriorated to core during long dictatorships, the only hope left for people is institution of judiciary, restored after long and tough struggle.

    If political leadership once again falls in to establishment’s trap to extract political decision from court, the scars on national unity and institutional integrity might be deeper than we do afford as a nation state.
    http://pakteahouse.wordpress.com/2009/11/28/extracting-political-decisions-from-the-judiciary-in-pakistan/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed:+teahouse+(Pak+Tea+House)

  • The Illegitimate Messiah Syndrome-Pak. Vs India.

    Seems to be a fair analysis.
    India is surging ahead amidst its myriad of problems,Pakistan is unable to come to terms with itself as a Nation.Sticking to a religious ideology that has been the bane of many a Democracy,looking for phantoms that are out to destroy it, when none is in place,to corrupt politicians( India has its fair share of these specimens),a pathetic people who do not raise their voice though there are a proud and intelligent people with culture.,looking for alms from countries that want Pakistan as a tool in their strategic games,allowing uncultured antediluvian mullahs to rouse passions with wrong interpretations of Islam,allowing an usurper to the highest office,exiled criminals being legally pardoned and allowed to have a decisive say in running the country,Pakistan presents a sad spectacle of a noble dream come unstuck.

    Story:
    Many Pakistanis are still not prepared to develop the patience required to see democracy through its early, evolutionary stages – especially difficult stages as a result of the violence done to it by military dictatorship after military dictatorship. They still look for and believe in personalities, not for a sustainable and equitable system. Many will tell you that the only cause for all of Pakistan’s woes is “humain aaj tak koi ddhang ka leader nahin mila (we never found a decent leader)”. The observation is correct. But the way we have gone about finding a decent leader has been completely wrong.

    A number of Pakistani and even Indian readers may not agree with parts of Steve Coll’s relatively short write-up below. But that is not hugely relevant to the main reason it is being reproduced here. The point that it is meant to highlight is that countries do not necessarily need larger than life heroes to lead them out of trouble. Equally importantly, democracy does not necessarily and need not produce such a perfect specimen. Dull, dreary but adequate will do. The system, if strong, will take care of the rest. Statecraft is not really a one-man job. Democracy is the least bad way of ensuring that, more often than not, the whole might just be greater than the sum of its parts.

    Manmohan Singh

    By Steve Coll The New Yorker, November 24, 2009

    The Indian Prime Minister, who appeared at a joint press conference with President Obama today and who will be fêted at Obama’s first state dinner tonight, is not likely to leave much of an impression on the American public. A few may take passing note of his preference for powder-blue turbans. Otherwise, this Sikh economist and Congress Party technocrat with a sonorous but self-effacing voice normally conducts himself in a way designed not to attract too much attention. Politically, he has been the product of a democratic system in India—and particularly, its ungainly Congress coalitions—that tends to reward consensus builders. Then, too, a democracy as pluralistic and relatively crisis-free as India’s is not the sort of system that will produce outsized leaders, for good or ill—a quality that reflects India’s political and constitutional health.

    Singh’s low profile is misleading in important respects, however. His counterparts in the rising Hindu-nationalist movement have made more noise and been more proactive in reshaping post-Cold War Indian politics, but Singh has outlasted them all and will be remembered as a seminal figure of India’s transition from socialism and Soviet-leaning nonalignment to managed capitalism and rising power status. He has in many ways been an indispensable figure in India’s recent transitions. As finance minister during the late, sclerotic socialist period, he quietly helped steer the treasury through various close fiscal calls. He defied political convention and called for India to fight off its anti-colonial hangover, recognize the accumulating failure of its state-run economy, and embrace the opportunities of post-Cold War global trade. During the nineteen-nineties, when the Hindu nationalists rose to power, in large part because of their appeal to the country’s emerging urban business classes, Singh helped hold a fragmenting Congress leadership together, in service of Rajiv Gandhi’s Italian-born widow, Sonia, who embraced the Sikh economist as her political partner. When the Hindu nationalists finally ran out of steam, Singh steered Congress back into power, first in unwieldy alliance with leftist parties, and now, finally, in possession of a solid majority.

    It was Singh, more than any individual in India, who was prepared to invest his political career in the pursuit of a transformational peace with Pakistan. It was Singh, after the Mumbai attacks, which came on the cusp of national elections, who had the courage to campaign for reëlection on a platform of steely restraint—and who was rewarded by Indian voters. His record may not stand with the great political figures of our age—Mandela, Gorbachev. In his own country’s history, he certainly does not rank with the Gandhis and Nehrus. Yet he is one of those neglected, careful, seemingly incorruptible, admirable figures that [united] India’s independence movement and democracy have managed to produce regularly.

    The Pakistani Experience

    Indians, Pakistanis and others come up with all sorts of differences between the two countries in order to explain their increasingly divergent trajectories along the road to stability and, lately, prosperity. To many Indians Pakistan is the country of religious zealots created by the treacherously communal Mohammed Ali Jinnah. To many others Jinnah was simply communal, and the question of treachery did not arise since, according to them, he played no part in India’s independence movement. Both these views have now been ably and successfully countered and discredited by a number of leading scholars.

    Emphasis has been added to key parts of the last two lines of Mr Coll’s article to show two important aspects of India and Pakistan. The one about Jinnah, Nehru and Gandhi is the common aspect. However, in Pakistan soon after Jinnah died of natural causes at age 72, constitutionalism and rule of law were murdered in their infancy. What followed was a series of self-appointed messiahs with no legitimate right to rule.

    The still-born democracy of Pakistan from the time of Liaquat Ali Khan’s assassination is ultimately the only critical difference between the two countries. Almost none of the other differences are as acute, of course always allowing for differences in size and demography. This is a brief investigation into the critical reason for the disproportionate disparity, not lack of equality. Otherwise both countries have had their share of poverty, even of violence. In India they call it communalism and it has tended to manifest itself in short and intense occasional outbursts of senseless violence. In Pakistan, on the other hand, we call it sectarianism and it has been an ongoing, low-intensity war.

    It is this critical difference, of the presence of a more than rudimentary system of rule of law in India that allows some hope that the chief organisers and the occasional high-placed aiders and abetters of such violence might be brought to justice one day. At least there isn’t the case of a dictator like Musharraf arbitrarily letting Ahmed Tariq (founder of Sipah Sahaba) out of prison just so that Musharaf’s own man could be Prime Minister. The Indian judicial system may be inefficient, even incompetent, at places, but it is not without a large degree of freedom and credible levels of fairness. Most importantly, India’s democracy, with all its flaws, offers hope looking to the future.

    Perhaps the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the legacies of that war have also been a burden not experienced by our eastern neighbour. But, again, it’s a burden made a thousand times worse by the dictatorship at that time.

    In Pakistan, almost 60 years of arbitrary rule of one form or another, punctuated with short, abortive periods of controlled democracy, have never allowed an appreciation of either the reality of politics and of politicians in general, or of the importance and utility of a strong system over ‘great and good’ men of absolute power. A large number of people believe in discriminating between good and bad leaders and not necessarily between legitimate and illegitimate power. It seems that hardly any one is able to appreciate or prepared to accept that as long as there is rule of law and a reasonably robust system of checks and balances, even (suspected) crooks amongst politicians and leaders will do. There is not enough of a realisation that allowing the arbitrary power of a strongman to destroy the system in the irrational hope that he might turn out to be the long-awaited saviour is gambling of the most reckless kind. That it’s suicidal to the extent that it is tantamount to putting aside getting on with all the practical issues, responsibilities and requirements of life and betting on and waiting for a miracle to take care of things instead.
    http://pakteahouse.wordpress.com/2009/11/26/the-illegitimate-messiah-syndrome/#comment-21600

  • Have we fallen out of love with capitalism BBC World Service.

    Honey moon with Capitalism is turning sour.
    Reason is that Keynesian Economic Theory is not working in terms controlling Inflation and deflation.
    Secondly the assumption that material benefits alone can guarantee security is taking a beating as security of future is not guaranteed even by Capitalism.
    The divide between the have’s and Have nots have widened to the point of being unbridgeable, recalling to one’s mind the conditions obtaining in France prior to 1789;here the nobles have been substituted by Corporations and the obscenely rich.
    Fourthly,financial scams by corporates have disillusioned the common man.
    However, Communism is no solution as capitalism with more controls and distribution of wealth is the solution.
    http://worldhaveyoursay.wordpress.com/2009/11/09/have-we-fallen-out-of-love-with-capitalism/#comment-177228

  • Governor-General Quentin Bryce spends $700k on Africa visit-Australia.

    WellThough highly oblectionable and reprehensible, for us in India,this is fleabite. We have politicians who openly swallow millions of public money.We with draw cases against a man who funneled crores into past Prime Minister’s account(Bofors); we have Chief Ministers who openly amass wealth, demanding 10-25% on every government contract;we have a Chief Minister who keeps on building statues for her through the state ,despite Supreme Court’s ruling; and the beauty is we keep electing them again and again.
    Probably the price we have to pay for Democracy!People talk of ending caste system and class system.What about Political class?
    Mute spectators like us are left holding the tab.
    Story:
    TAXPAYERS have been left with a $700,000 bill from Governor-General Quentin Bryce’s controversial 18-day trek to 10 African countries earlier this year.

    Ms Bryce visited the countries in March and April as part of a campaign to win Australia a seat on the UN Security Council.

    Heavily criticised for lobbying on behalf of the Rudd Government, she faces fresh attacks over the extraordinary cost.

    http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,26270139-952,00.html?referrer=email&source=CM_email_nl

  • Nick Griffin uses BBC appearance to attack Muslims and gays.

    One need not agree with Mr.Griffin;but certain points are to be noted.
    The language he used ,may be incorrect.
    1.Islam is not only incompatible with British Society of today,but of most societies in the world of today as well.Many of us are scared to voice this opinion because it does not seem to be the right thing to say.
    2.Homosexuals are definitely an aberration;accept it;they are abnormal and sick;do not justify them,but treat them.
    His remarks on coloreds are not appropriate.
    If people were to retaliate they can say that ,in fact Britain was colonising the world till yesterday.May be, sins of fathers are visiting sons!
    More over, Britain today depends on coloreds for their survival, Brown in paritcular.If they decide to leave,you shall be in a bleak island, a US surrogate.
    3.His remarks on Holocaust is totally abhorrent.Totally inhumane.
    4.However ,BBC has done a good job of interviewing him.Democracy is all about discussion and clarification and no gagging.

    Story:
    Mr Griffin said Islam was not compatible with life in Britain, while describing homosexuals as “creepy”.
    The remarks provoked indignation from other members of the BBC panel and hostile parts of the audience, some of whom booed, calling him “a disgrace”.

    The BNP leader could not explain why he had previously sought to play down the Holocaust and defended his use of Sir Winston Churchill on BNP literature on the basis that his father had fought in the Second World War.

    He claimed that Churchill would have been a member of the BNP and was “Islamaphobic” by “today’s standard”.

    Asked whether he denied that millions of Jews and other minorities had been killed by the Nazis, Mr Griffin would only reply: “I do not have a conviction for Holocaust denial.”

    He was then chastised by David Dimbleby, the host of the programme, for smiling.

    The controversial statements were made in response to intense questioning by members of the audience from ethnic minorities.

    BBC Television Centre in west London came under siege as filming took place, with MPs joining hundreds of protesters behind lines of police. There were six arrests as dozens of protesters attempted to storm the studio.

    BBC studios in Hull, Scotland and Wales were also targeted by demonstrators. The cost of the police operation was estimated to be more than £100,000.

    The BBC was certain to be questioned over why it allowed Mr Griffin to air such controversial views but executives were hoping that the intensive questioning that he faced would justify their decision to invite him on the Question Time panel for the first time.

    The BBC, which Mr Griffin denounced on the programme as “ultra-Leftist”, had claimed that impartiality rules meant that it had little choice but to invite him on to the programme after the BNP won seats in the European Parliament in elections earlier this year.

    He was joined on the panel by Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, Baroness Warsi, the Tory spokesman on community cohesion, Chris Huhne, the Liberal Democrats’ home affairs spokesman, and Bonnie Greer, a black American playwright.

    Mr Griffin was seated next to Miss Greer.

    One of the most controversial moments came when Mr Dimbleby asked the BNP leader why he had been pictured with David Duke, the former leader of the Klan. Mr Griffin claimed that parts of the racist group, officially classed as a “hate organisation” in America, were “non-violent”.

    However, he insisted: “I’m not a Nazi and never have been.”

    He claimed that he was “the most loathed man in Britain” among British fascists.

    He was questioned over his views on Islam and said it had “good points” but “does not fit in with the fundamental values of British society”. He was also attacked for describing white Britons as the “indigenous” population who faced “genocide”. We are the Aborigines here, he said.

    Amid angry scenes, one Asian member of the audience asked Mr Griffin where he would like him to be sent and then suggested that he himself might find the South Pole a good destination because it was “a colourless landscape”.

    Mr Griffin boasted to BNP supporters before the programme that he was “relishing” the prospect of “political blood sport”. “I will, no doubt, be interrupted, shouted down, slandered, put on the spot, and subjected to a scrutiny that would be a thousand times more intense than anything directed at other panellists,” he said. “It will, in other words, be political blood sport. But I am relishing this opportunity.”

    Speaking after filming had finished, Mr Griffin claimed that he had been able to “land some punches”.

    About one million people voted for the BNP at the European elections, leading to Mr Griffin taking up one of its two seats in the European Parliament. As a result, BBC executives said strict impartiality rules effectively forced them to include the party in Question Time.

    Mark Thompson, the director-general of the BBC, said the Government should ban the BNP if it felt that Mr Griffin should not have been allowed to take part in the broadcast.

    “If there is a case for censorship, it should be debated and decided in Parliament,” he said. “Political censorship cannot be outsourced to the BBC or anyone else.”

    He said the BNP had “demonstrated a level of support that would normally lead to an occasional invitation to join the panel on Question Time”.

    Politicians from minor parties, including George Galloway, the Respect MP, and Caroline Lucas, the leader of the Green party, regularly appeared on Question Time.

    Mr Thompson insisted that Mr Griffin had been invited so that the public could challenge his views, rather than any “misguided desire to be controversial”.

    Speaking before the programme, Gordon Brown said the BNP’s appearance was a matter for the BBC and that he was confident that Mr Griffin would be exposed for his “unacceptable” views.

    “I hope that the exposure of the BNP will make people see what they are really like,” the Prime Minister said.

    However, there were fears that Mr Griffin’s appearance would lead to an increase in support.

    He had said he was hopeful his party would be propelled into “the big time” as a result of the broadcast and described his appearance on the show as “a milestone in the indomitable march of the British National Party towards saving our country”.

    Ken Livingstone, the former mayor of London and the chairman of Unite Against Fascism, claimed that the broadcast could lead to an increase in racist attacks and views.

    “For the angry racist it’s a trigger that turns into an attack,” he said.

    “We first saw this when Enoch Powell made his Rivers of Blood speech. There was a huge surge of attacks on black conductors on our buses, and that is why I think you apply a different standard to the BNP to those parties that do not legitimise this sort of violence against minorities.”
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/6410764/BNP-on-Question-Time-Nick-Griffin-uses-BBC-appearance-to-attack-Muslims-and-gays.html#