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shahbaz sharif ka taraf e jurm
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Thursday 23 February 2012
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Mr Shahbaz Sharif’s ‘invitation’ to military and Judiicary may have been well-intentioned and may not be the same as the MQM chief’s call to ‘patriotic generals’, but his proposal is not constitutional. The army’s role is to safeguard our borders and protect the country from attacks. Constitutionally, it has no role whatsoever to meddle in the political domain. Our history shows us that our military has been anything but non-political. Thus to ‘invite’ it again, even at a political conference, is asking for trouble. As far as the security situation is concerned, what with the war on terror and the ever-increasing terrorist attacks, the executive is already discussing the security situation with the military on an ongoing basis. Such consultations are a norm given the circumstances but this does not mean that the military has any role to play at a political convention. As per our constitution, the judiciary is independent but its role is to dispense justice. The judiciary should remain unbiased and apolitical instead of being involved in politics. We have seen an executive-judiciary clash many a time and should not be advocating a role for the judiciary that is not within its constitutional purview. It is out of the judiciary’s writ to join politicians at a conference that is meant solely for the political class. Pakistan has a democratic government in place. At the proposed all-parties conference, the political parties should join hands and come up with solutions to address the crises our country is facing.
Given our history, if the judiciary and military are indeed invited to an all-parties conference, it would give out a wrong message. We need to avoid this at all costs. The democratic government and all political parties need to address the grievances of the nation. It is also imperative that civilian supremacy be asserted and established.
Shahbaz Sharif has put the cat (or rather three cats) among the pigeons by proposing a great and grand conference of “all the political stake holders” of the country, including the judiciary, army and media, to take stock of the deteriorating situation and cobble a national consensus on how to set things right. This is rich, coming as it does from the leader of a party that, in 1998, stormed the supreme court of Pakistan for demanding judicial autonomy from an overbearing PMLN executive, sacked an army chief for advocating a national security council for consultation of all stake holders, and tried to silence the media for exposing corruption at the highest levels of the PMLN government. What has compelled him to make this extraordinary suggestion?