Knee-jerk justice

By Monday night, the number of suspects arrested in the widely publicized assault on a woman in Lahore’s Greater Iqbal Park on independence day had topped 100.

With the Punjab Police under pressure following widespread publicity to this terrible crime, arresting the culprits involved had become a top priority. Yet, this latest case of criminality targeting an unarmed woman has also exposed key gaps in Pakistan’s justice system.

The sense of urgency and commotion in Lahore replicated the reaction in Islamabad after last month’s terrible murder of Noor Mukadam. Noor Mukadam's case, which saw a crime of brutal tortured and beheading by the suspect, evoked widespread anger among a range of stakeholders. It was not just women following that terrible event who felt betrayed in their own country. Others who joined the backlash ranged from students and young professionals to the elderly.

But taken together, a closer assessment of these two recent crimes and other similar events have badly exposed an uncomfortable truth: Pakistan suffers from uncontrollably growing lawlessness.

As Pakistan’s leaders make public promises to deliver justice in each of these cases, the prospect for a return to a qualitatively improved rule of law remains dim. In a nutshell, whenever the cause of justice has been served fully or partially, that has taken place more as a knee-jerk response depending on the scale of visible public pressure.

In stark contrast, the breakdown of institutions over the past decades has contributed equally if not more to the growing wave of lawlessness. Meanwhile, successive governments have consistently shown tolerance towards growing lawlessness not just year after year but in fact month after month. It’s hardly surprising that Pakistan’s wave of continuing lawlessness ranges from widespread traffic violations on a daily basis to far more serious crimes targeting individuals, communities and institutions. It’s a picture that suggests a radical departure from the days of Pakistan from its yesteryears.

That departure for the worst is as much a consequence of a breakdown of institutions as the decision to defang long established government institutions at the grassroots. Towards that end, Pakistan today lives with the consequences of the devolution exercise undertaken during the tenure of former president Gen Pervez Musharraf. That experiment was meant to empower the country’s electorate by creating a new system of representation at the grassroots. But it has tragically failed to deliver objectives that were specified up front.

Since that exercise almost two decades ago, the writ of the state has weakened and its ability to take charge of vital functions has been badly compromised. The system of local governments as it was meant to function through elections to local bodies is nowhere to be seen.

But the tragedy comes vividly across when the performance of government institutions at the grassroots is compared to the past. Meanwhile, the system of ‘knee-jerk justice’ has thrown up an all too familiar pattern of follow up steps to major crimes. That a few heads of police officers must roll after a major crime is reported has tragically become something of a given.

Going forward, Pakistan can simply not carry on with business as usual, without making some very radical changes in the way the country is governed. In the short run, it is difficult to imagine an alternative to the creation of a quick response mechanism for criminal investigation, which is able to deploy urgently in support of a largely archaic system of policing across the country. Armed with state-of-the-art forensic techniques, such a system can lift the quality of investigation and prosecution following a major crime. In tandem with this step, it is also essential to begin tackling gaps in local policing, in areas like meeting the challenge of frequent traffic violations. Other useful steps must include a revival of mechanisms like the ‘honorary’ magistracy alongside the official magistracy to tackle the investigation and prosecution of low to moderate intensity crimes.

For the long haul, a return to the basics must become a cornerstone of a long road ahead. This must be anchored upon a revival of the writ of the state as it existed before Pakistan’s ill-advised experiment with devolution of authority to the grassroots was put in motion, which never even began to deliver meaningful results.

The writer is an Islamabad-based journalist who writes on political and economic affairs.

Email: farhanbokhari@gmail.com