Commissions are of no use

ISLAMABAD: A careful perusal of the past record of the inquiry or judicial commissions show that the exercise mostly resulted in wastage of time and in majority of the cases either no concrete findings were given or any given findings never led to a conclusion or decisive judgment.

It is generally perceived in legal and bureaucratic circles that forming a commission is the best available trick with the elite of the society to waste maximum time and to avoid any untoward situation or any punishment.

History of Pakistan stands witness to the fact whenever the government landed in hot waters regarding any scam or confronting issues, it moves desperately to get sympathy from public by announcing formation of any such judicial or inquiry commission. Through formation of judicial and inquiry commissions, the governments have been pacifying public on any public related tragedy or any other state level scam.

Historically, moves to constitute judicial and inquiry commissions were meant to address any vested interests of the ruling elites and governments. At times, governments moved to constitute commissions reluctantly on public pressure. In such situations, commissions were only formed when governments were left with no other option.

Even in such situations, commissions were formed to avoid public wrath as it has been ensured that prerogative to make any report public lies with it. Reports of many commissions were never made public. In cases where it was made public, it failed to identify the elements responsible for the respective mayhem that led to the constitution of the commission.

Judicial commissions and inquiry commissions become more vulnerable when state institutions are reluctant to efficiently fulfill their responsibilities. If all the state agencies and investigative departments work independently with autonomous powers to function, there may not be any excuse to form commissions on public pressure.

Similarly, an inquiry commission was formed headed by Justice Saqib Nisar in 2011 on killing of Journalist Salim Shahzad and the commission completed its report with hectic exercise of seven months and even that commission failed to identify the elements responsible for killing of Salim Shhazad.

On May 2, 2011 after mysterious killing of Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, government constituted inquiry commission under Justice Javed Iqbal as it prepared report in two years. The report was presented to the prime minister on January 4, 2013 but it has never been made public in the larger national interest.

The similar exercise was repeated after firing incident at renowned anchorperson Hamid Mir and same sequel of recommendations and findings was repeated.

History of judicial commissions in Pakistan dates back to 1953 and 1972 and foremost judicial commission was Hamood-ur-Rehman Commission, which was constituted to identify the elements responsible for separation of East Pakistan. The first partial report on ‘Dhakka Fall’ (Hamood-ur-Rehman Commission Report) was completed in 1974 after recording the statements of Pakistani prisoners in Indian jails. The detailed report of Hamood-ur-Rehman Commisison was kept away from public for 28 years and some parts of the report were published in 2000 in some sections of media.

Later in 1996, after assassination of Murtaza Bhutto, an inquiry tribunal was constituted headed by Sindh High Court Chief Justice Nasir and the commission termed the assassination of Murtaza Bhutto a conspiracy but failed to identify the elements involved in the conspiracy.

Similarly, an investigative tribunal was constituted to probe the issue of mishandling of former chief justice of Pakistan Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry by police officials on the day when chief justice was removed from his office.

Panama issue has not only engulfed Pakistan but some politicians from India were also named in PanamaLeaks and over this mega scam, Indian apex court taking prompt action ordered to conduct investigations but in our part of world, contrary to any state institution, Prime Minister of Pakistan came to front and announced to investigate the issue through judicial commission.

Political leadership in our country used to justify their corruption by reminding public about sacrifices of their families for the cause of democracy in the country, same instance was repeated by PPP Co-Chairman Asif Ali Zardari for having served 11 years jail in different corruption cases and PML-N head Nawaz Sharif used to gain public sympathy by referring to their properties which were nationalised in 70s and later they were forced to go into exile during Musharraf regime. For the sake of public vote and to seize public sympathy, political leadership defines sanctity of the constitution and importance of democracy that suits it well. There is no tradition in the world that political leadership demands reward for injustice done to them.

If state institutions like NAB, FIA and courts allowed functioning with autonomy, one has to find no excuse to form judicial commissions and inquiry commissions.

During last three and a half years during PML-N government, numerous commissions were formed including judicial commission to probe rigging in 2013 elections, Model Town tragedy, Quetta tragedy but findings of these reports reluctantly presented to public, resultantly the entire exercise proved futile and on frequent occasions, government seems in no hurry to take any action in the light of the recommendations as identified in inquiry commissions’ report.

Since elections 2013, PTI leadership has been voicing rigging allegations against PML-N government and when the government left with no other option to pacify sit-in participants moved to form judicial commission under Justice Nasirul Mulk included Justice Ameer Hani Msulim and Justice Ijaz Fazal. PTI leadership accused government of stealing public mandate and making organised rigging. To address accusations of opposition against the government, the inquiry commission tried to answer three major questions whether rigging was committed on organised level, 2013 elections were transparent and the election result reflected the mandate of the public.

Later, the commission in its report identified numerous anomalies in 2013 election process and ECP was held accountable as it lacked specialised equipment which could ensure forensic validity. In addition, questions were raised in the inquiry commission report over ECP incapacity for not having its own storage space for polling bags as storage space for polling bags is required to produce as evidence. The questions arises right now if ECP has addressed all these anomalies as identified in inquiry commission report or the sequence of follies will be once more repeated in next general elections.

Moreover, inquiry commission report on Model Town tragedy is still on the back burner and the government does not seem in a hurry to take any action in the light of the recommendations of the report.

The inquiry conducted by Justice Ali Baqar Najfi of the Lahore High Court had reportedly held the Punjab government responsible for the incident, saying police acted on orders that led to bloodshed. In that particular case, the government kept the report secret but its contents leaked to media afterwards. Further to avert reaction from aggrieved stakeholders, the government termed the report inconclusive and formed a committee to carry out its detailed analysis and make recommendations. Any timeframe on part of the government was not given for finalisation of the process to take Model Town inquiry report to logical conclusion.

The government is not required to reveal findings of all the judicial commissions and in the case of Model Town incident inquiry, there were no findings as it was the mandate of the government to fix the responsibility of the incident after examining the documents being sought from the government. That’s the reason grievances even in this particular case of the stakeholders were never addressed.

The prevailing impasse between the government and the opposition parties over how Panama Papers could not be settled despite marathon meetings held by the ToRs committee. The crux of the government’s demands over PanamaLeaks is that whatever inquiry is conducted, it should not be limited to the prime minister and his family. On other side, the opposition’s demand is that the prime minister and his family be investigated first.

Contrary to the commitment to tackle PanamaLeaks issue, the government is more to address such issues in future and for this purpose, the government introduced in National Assembly a bill to provide for the constitution of ‘Commission of Inquiry’ being called as “The Pakistan Commissions of Inquiry Bill 2016”. The purpose of this bill is apparently to settle Panama and other such issues in future as well.

Whenever a major terrorism incident is reported, the government moved to activate Nacta and NAP but everything are in the doldrums with the passage of time and ruling junta pacifies the victims by forming inquiry commissions and judicial commissions.

Either it is Army Public School tragedy, Bacha Khan University attack or suicide attacks in Quetta, government did nothing to take the perpetrators to task and that the very reason that members of Shuhada Ghazi Forum of APS are still demanding the federal government to form commission to investigate the attack. Similarly Students Forum of Bacha Khan University had been demanding investigations through judicial inquiry commissions to pinpoint the elements responsible for these tragedies.