Upholders Of Law
By Suroor Mander
18 March, 2009
Countercurrents.org
I am fascinated with what is happening in Pakistan for many reasons, but also mainly as a law student. In recent history, the only real civil rights movement in Pakistan has started from the steps of the Supreme Court and ended its streets. India has had a history of lawyers being at the fore of movements, be it Gandhi or Ambedkar.
At a time when large parts of the lawyer community in India is busy making money and battling people who stand up for human rights, I find it interesting that in a crumbling country like Pakistan, it is the lawyers that are upholding the bastions of truth, however compromised it is.
The judiciary is the only wing of the Indian State that is surrounded in a shard of mystery today. The judiciary claims to be the most righteous of the three pillars of the Indian State, yet it fails to make it self accountable or transparent. It wants to curb the role of the Right to Information Act and stub the Judicial Accountability bill. The supreme court in 2004 passed strictures against the judiciary in Gujarat that failed to provide justice to the survivors of the 2002 pogrom, but it also couldn't protect its bench from being maligned. YK Sabharbhawal's orders in the Delhi land sealing case and the recommendation of judges with doubtful ethical practices have raised doubts over the credibility of the highest court of law in the country. Moreover the recent Provident fund scam and the Ghaziabad land allotment scam has exposed decay that hides behind a charade if self righteousness. The hypocrisy of the Supreme Court was exposed when they filed a petition in the High Court of Delhi against an order of the Central Information Commission that Supreme Court judges must declare their personal wealth, while continuing to make executive accountable to itself.
In the recent past, lawyers in the country have protested the amendments of the Criminal Procedure Code, mainly because they will lose their bail fees and not because it gives uncontrolled powers to the infamous police. The only time the lawyers united against the judiciary in Delhi was when the High Court revoked the licenses of I.U. Khan and R.K. Anand. The subversion of the legal system in Gujarat and the anti begging Public Interest Litigation in Delhi show the disconnect of the lawyers from the constitution. The recent incident at the Madras High Court speaks of the ever deteriorating state of the judiciary.
The boycott and harassment of lawyers fighting the defence of Kasab, Moninder Kohli or Binayak Sen is a disturbing sign that the lawyer community is becoming n sync with politics and not upholding the fundamentals of the constitution. In post independent India, the police, another upholder decided to join hands with politics, and today the institution holds no repute.
If the lawyer community in India wants to curb any loss of face or pride, it needs to introspect and make very critical choices about which values it wishes to uphold and what it wants to shed.
