Haj case returns
July 20, 2012
The Haj mega-corruption scandal has reared its ugly head yet again, and it seems like nothing has changed since last year when the head of the FIA investigation team, Hussain Asghar, was transferred to Gilgit-Baltistan as inspector general and a wide goose chase began to try and bring him back. In July last year, the Supreme Court had ordered reinstating Asghar and his team to the investigation but the Secretary Establishment was made officer on special duty (OSD) just hours after he issued a notification in compliance with the court’s directive. The message was abundantly clear: the government would go to any length to keep Asghar away from the probe. A year later, Asghar has still not been reinstated. In fact, on several occasions in the last year, the court has asked for his return to his parent department but has been informed each time that Asghar was still ‘busy’ looking after law and order problems in Gilgit-Baltistan. This Wednesday, an exasperated court finally ordered Asghar’s termination of service for his perceived defiance of its directives to report back to the FIA. And guess what – the very government that has been resisting the court’s orders in the Haj case since 2010 has suddenly jumped to comply and the attorney general promptly produced the notification of his termination before the court on Friday. In the days ahead, we can expect a fresh round of a frustrating back and forth on Asghar’s status, keeping the focus away from the real issue at hand: millions stolen from hapless pilgrims during Haj arrangements in 2010.
From the very beginning when the Supreme Court first took suo motu notice of the Haj case in December 2010, the government’s justification for not listening to court directives is that the court is encroaching upon the executive’s domain. The facts, however, tell a different story. As we have pointed out numerous times, it was the government, and not the SC, that initially appointed Asghar to head the investigation and it was the government that transferred him after it came to light that the PM’s son may be involved in the scam. Even at that point, the SC only took issue with the fact that Asghar was transferred at an important stage of the investigation and therefore advised that the investigation officer be allowed to complete his work before being re-transferred. Even in the latest move of Asghar’s termination, the court has waited for the prime minister to terminate him and not done the needful itself. This despite the fact that in exercise of the power of judicial review, the apex court is well within its constitutional right to scrutinise executive and administrative actions of the state and its public bodies, especially when such actions run contrary to the law and are violative of fundamental rights as guaranteed by the constitution. But even so, as the Haj case has progressed, we have seen that the court has always passed advice onto the prime minister first instead of passing direct, unilateral orders. In any case, how can attempts to get to the bottom of a mega-corruption scandal and ensure a smooth investigation be called an overstepping of boundaries? Quite apart from the complex world of rule of law, the basic question remains: if the government hasn’t broken any laws, and has nothing to hide, why does it need to play this never-ending game of cat and mouse?
Multan poll
July 20, 2012
The unofficial results of NA-151 bye-elections, where ousted prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani had staked all his political capital to prove the Supreme Court of Pakistan wrong through the “verdict of the people’s court”, have confirmed one basic fact: If the opposition challenges the PPP, no matter officially or through a proxy as in this specific constituency, there will be no walkovers or runaway victories for the PPP as we saw in the earlier election of Mr Gilani’s younger son, Musa Gilani, who had secured 93,000 votes. The contest on NA-151 between Qadir Gilani and a brother of a PTI leader of the influential Bosan family was neck to neck. The claims of the former PM, who plunged into his son’s campaign with full force, evaporated into thin air as the obvious situation was that while the loyalists of the Gilani clan and Gilani’s disciples voted for his son, other political forces, though fighting an indirect and a proxy battle, made their presence felt quite strongly.
What now appears a telling fact of our electoral politics is that if and when the opposition parties, PML-N, PTI and others, come to fight with all their guns blazing and with their top leaders in the field, the PPP will have only family and disciples to count on. The PPP may have won a close-fought victory but the Multan poll did not turn out to be an overwhelming verdict by the people against the Supreme Court of Pakistan. It was not an impressive victory and did not, by any means, exonerate Yousuf Raza Gilani, as he had claimed would be the case.What the high-profile contest revealed is that the people are now ready to use the power of the ballot to punish those who made them suffer in the name of democracy in the last about five years. This is a highly encouraging sign for those seeking a more stable, less corrupt and truer democracy.