What Justice?

As we all know, or should know, the cornerstone of justice is: all accused will be deemed to be innocent until proved to be guilty in a recognized court of law under due process. Thus the onus of proving innocence does not lie on the accused. The onus of proving guilt lies squarely on the prosecution. You collect evidence first, make a case, take your case to a proper court and only arrest a person after the court allows you to issue warrants of arrest.

Our National Accountability Bureau or NAB has stood this cardinal principle of justice upon its head and made a mockery of justice. Inevitably, when the victim is granted bail later, there is no explanation why a person was denied freedom and what they will do by way of reparation. So who is the criminal? Welcome to the ‘Islamic’ Republic of Pakistan that has been made un-Islamic by virtually every government we have had the joy of suffering.

They arrest first and ask questions later. Such a thing could never have happened in the State of Medina that our ostensibly well-meaning prime minister is trying to emulate. Since the State of Medina was fashioned by our Holy Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), is not making justice unjust the height of blasphemy? Is the government wittingly or unwittingly committing blasphemy against Prophet Muhammad (PBUH)? In fact, such so called justice flies in the face of natural law. The usual excuse is that the accused may escape the country. You have an Exit Control List, don’t you? You have myriad police and intelligence operatives crawling around all points of exit? Most times, when an accused does manage to ‘escape’ it is either with the consent (connivance?) of government.

How can a State allow such things to happen? My notion is that behaviour like this is driven by acute dislike, prejudice or hatred. One suspects that this is what seems to be happening to Mir Shakil-ur-Rehman, owner of Pakistan’s largest media house, the Jang Group. They made no case against him, no reference to a recognised court of law, no proper charge sheet, no evidence, arrested him and threw him in an eight foot by ten-foot cell. What do they think they are doing? Putting him under inordinate psychological pressure so that he breaks and says that I am guilty. Is the NAB an accountability bureau or a resurrection of Hitler’s Gestapo? This has happened to so many people, not just Mir Shakil that the list is too long to mention. Just because a very large number of people say that somebody is guilty of some kind of behaviour and the chattering classes pick it up, it doesn’t mean that you take it seriously when you come to power even if the person has been unfriendly to you. I recall that in the old days, Imran Khan used to say to me that God says in the Quran, never hate somebody so much that you cannot do them justice. I would humbly request my old friend to kindly remember this.

The Creator says in verse 5:8 of Surah Al-Ma’idah: “Believers, fulfill your duties to Allah and bear true witness. Do not allow your hatred for other men to turn you away from justice. Deal Justly: that will bring you closer to piety. Have fear of Allah; Allah is cognizant of all your actions.” By the same token, never love anyone so much that you cannot do justice. Never support anyone to such an extent (primarily for self-interest) that you cannot do justice. Never be so vulnerable to pressures, threats and greed that you cannot do justice. Be scared of your Creator. Love only your Creator and humanity, the greatest of all is creations, His jewel. What else matters? The best way to affirm your Faith in the Creator is by meting out justice, not hatred. Before it’s too late, our beloved prime minister would do well to remember all these things and go about re-creating the State of Medina in Pakistan, which is his great desire. If anyone can do it, he can.

Hatred reminds me that when Nadir Shah sacked Delhi and some shopkeepers pushed some of his soldiers around, he sent his army on a bloodletting rampage and said until he lowers his raised sword, they should kill anyone and everyone they see. And so it came to pass. A recent example of injustice isthe judgement of the Chief Justice of the Peshawar High Court who said that former president Musharraf should be dragged to Islamabad D Chowk, whether dead or alive and should be left hanging there for three days. This appalling judgement was a result of acute hatred. Three days? Count Dracula would impale people on his spears and leave them there for a long time. Does our NAB want Dracula’s ghost to revolve in his grave?

Now let’s hear Fredric Bastiat: “When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in a society, over the course of time they create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.”

This then is Pakistan’s status quo. It is enshrined in its constitution, precisely the hole we are trapped in. It won’t be easy to climb out of it; instead we keep digging the hole deeper by being mentally enslaved to western and alien concepts, not our own. It will require massive collective effort led by society, by the judiciary and the media. But all others like businesses big and small, agriculturists, academics, and genuine scholars both of the spiritual and secular kind will also have to play their part. It will be no less than a classic revolution and every nation – provided it is a nation – has it in it to do so once the tipping point has come.

Today it is the Supreme Court that holds the teetering balance of Pakistan’s future in its hands, not just of leadership change but making the revolution in one fell swoop of a judgment. Let’s hope and pray they have justice in their hearts, not just mundane laws and legalism made by a group of plunderers. Law can often be an ass. They will do so if they are real Muslims and I am no one to judge. No one is; only the Creator knows what is in men’s hearts.

I don’t want to get into the minutiae of Mir Shakil’s case because it is still ongoing. Suffice it to say, we are expecting justice based on sensible laws, not laws made by self-serving plunderers and those rived by revenge or hatred who have made “justice” their handmaiden. We are tired of unjust judgments based on asinine laws, crutches for ducking justice.

I don’t know how the minds of the judges are evolving, not even from their remarks and questions, but they would — or at least should — know that they hold the future course of Pakistan’s destiny in their hands. Will it become a state based on rule of law or a state based on might is right, the law of the jungle? Will it be a judgment that kick starts the process of systemic change for the better or will it just maintain the man-eating status quo? If it is change for the better it can take time, but it can start. Such change can also be brought about with the stroke of a pen but better would be change with consensus for it to be everlasting, one that enables people to choose governments that regularly and significantly deliver and improve the human condition starting from the poorest. No longer do we want dictators in ‘democrats’ clothing. Neither do we want elected leaders who try and become dictators by virtue of unfair laws. They are the most dangerous kind and all our laws, including our basic law, is made or aped by them. Some illiterate-educated might call it a dream, but poor chaps, they don’t know that dreams are the stuff reality is made of. Every harbinger of change, including prophets and messengers of God, were initially called ‘dreamers.’

Fate-changing moments come but rarely. We have one before us. If the Supreme Court and we let it pass, we are doomed. If we grasp it, we will find real independence for the second time. Not many countries get that. The Supreme Court has a great opportunity to redeem the judiciary from its sins past, otherwise like Macbeth’s wife, it will forever be washing its hands … “out, out you damned spot”. They can atone for their part in enabling the judicial murder of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto; for legitimizing usurper after usurper; for not supporting their Chief Justice Sajjad Ali Shah when a rampant Nawaz Sharif attacked the Supreme Court building; for supporting an odious and corrupt chief justice when he was rightly sacked and making Pakistan pay the price with his jumbo jet-sized ego, bad judgments and trying to hide his corruption by hiding behind his incompetent son. One can go on adding to this list. No point. Redeem yourselves you judges, save Pakistan and book your place in Heaven.

The judges and the wolves are informed. The Moving Finger knows and has started writing. Whose fate is it writing?

humayun.gauhar786@ gmail.com

Courtesy: Pakistan Today