Pakistan
PCOed
By Naeem Sadiq
08 December, 2007
Dawn
As
the president took an oxymoronic oath on the "nowhere to be seen"
1973 Constitution, administered by an ever too keen Provisional Constitution
Order (PCO) Chief Justice, a $60m Lear jet landed at Islamabad airport
to become the fourteenth aircraft of the VVIP fleet that caters to the
travelling comforts of the leadership of Pakistan.
Besides a convoluted order
of priority, is there a direct relationship between the number of expensive
VVIP aeroplanes and respect for the Constitution in a country?
How come a country conspicuous
by the absence of a decent education, health or public transport system
for its ordinary citizens, be so disproportionately sympathetic to the
well being and luxuries of its leaders? Perhaps these aeroplanes support
tasks of supreme national importance, such as the Frontier governor's
weekend partridge hunting visits to Nawabshah. After all we don't expect
him to be travelling by Khyber Mail or Chenab Express.
No wonder there is a long
queue of people, ever so ready to rattle out oaths for such cushy jobs.
The contents and the legality of such oaths is a matter that should
interest only the finicky lawyers, the chattering journalists or the
emailing civil society.
Pakistan has been badly PCOed
and trapped in a tortuous cobweb of illegalities. The 'emergency' itself
is illegal. It was promulgated by a person not authorised to do so.
The Constitution cannot be suspended. Anyone doing so, must be given
a fair trial under Article 6, instead of being upgraded to the post
of the president. Can we have a president and a prime minister who take
oath under a 'non-existent' constitution?
Having done so, they could
at best be referred to as 'non-existent' president and prime minister.
It is on record that within the first few hours of its promulgation,
the seven member Supreme Court bench had declared the PCO as illegal
and extra-constitutional. Thus the judges who took oath on the PCO and
subsequently administered it to many other individuals can also be suitable
candidates for a fair application of Article 6 of the Constitution.
Pakistan and its people find
themselves torn and ravaged by the man-made disaster inflicted upon
them on the afternoon of Nov 3. Do we continue to retain our citizenship,
after the country itself has renounced its own Constitution? Do we even
continue to remain a country which gives up on the core document that
defines its nationhood -- almost like denying its own existence?
For how long will the people
of Pakistan continue to be PCOed? Why must Pakistan and its people suffer
such humiliating global indignity and such demeaning personal assaults?
They must put an end to the PCOing of their lives, once and for all.
They must refuse to vote for political parties that find it politically
expedient to support such unconstitutional arrangements. For sixty years
the judiciary and the political parties have extracted their pound of
flesh from each PCO. They have regularised, validated, supported and
even appreciated each arriving PCO. It is only now, and for the first
time that a sizeable number of judges have taken a clear and firm stand
of saying 'No to PCO'. If the citizens of Pakistan do not rally behind
their call, we must be ready to live with a fresh five yearly PCO for
the rest of our lives.
Pakistan is suffering from
an acute disease of compulsive constitutionlessness. The citizens of
Pakistan must intervene to save this country. The politicians will not
do so. They are only awaiting the next oath taking ceremony that would
clear the way for their endless global junkets and Umrahs at the tax
payers' expense, aboard the 14 luxury aeroplanes parked in the VVIP
section of Islamabad airport.
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