LAHORE:

Just three years after establishing what appeared to be an unbreakable bond, the bar and bench turned against each other at all levels in 2010.

In March 2007, the country’s lawyers stood behind Chief Justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry after his attempted suspension by Gen Pervez Musharraf, launching a historic movement for judicial independence.

This year, lawyers boycotted the courts in protest at the CJP’s policies, broke the door to the chambers of the chief justice of the Lahore High Court (LHC), and threw shoes at a sessions judge.

The Punjab Bar Council (PbBC) took the lead on May 15, 2010, when its vice chairman Mumtaz Mustafa announced that the bars of the province would boycott the courts every Saturday in protest at the National Judicial Policy. He said the policy, under which judges were instructed to clamp down on continuances, hurt lawyers and litigants. The boycott is still continuing, despite efforts to resolve it by the then chief justice of the LHC.

But the major flash point of the year revolved around a district and sessions judge, Zawar A Sheikh, and manifested in violent street clashes between police and black-coated advocates. In June, the Lahore Bar Association demanded that the judge quit for his alleged rudeness towards lawyers who appeared before him.

On July 12, lawyers led by LBA president Sajid Bashir marched from Aiwan-e-Adl to the Sessions Court, barged into Sheikh’s chambers and forced him out.

They stopped all proceedings, threw stones and shoes at Sheikh and other judges as they tried to flee in their cars, and closed the gates so they couldn’t leave.

The police eventually arrived to rescue the frightened judges. The subordinate judiciary announced a 15-day strike. Then LHC Chief Justice Khawaja Muhammad Sharif tried to reconcile the two sides, but to no avail. CJP Chaudhry took suo motu notice and set up a committee headed by an LHC judge to encourage the two sides to find a negotiated solution to the dispute, but that committee failed too.

On September 30, a group of LBA lawyers broke windows in the courtroom of the LHC chief justice and manhandled the registrar, Abdul Sattar Asghar, when he tried to stop them. They also burnt an effigy of Sheikh in the courtroom. The police were called in and they arrested more than a hundred LBA lawyers.

This intensified the protest, with the lawyers blaming the LHC chief justice for the police excesses. On October 3, the beleaguered Justice Sharif sent Sheikh on one week of forced leave. In response, some 1,300 lower court judges handed in their resignations.

The escalating crisis came to a head on October 10, when the police again came face to face with LBA lawyers. The blackcoats wanted to march from the Sessions Court to the LHC to show their anger at the chief justice.

The city district government banned public protest and heavy police contingents used teargas and baton charges to stop the lawyers from coming on to the streets.

Justice Sharif finally relented and transferred the controversial sessions judge, making him a member of the LHC inspection team.

Before he retired from the LHC on December 8, Justice Sharif tried to reach out to the LBA by sending them an unusually large grant. They refused to accept it. At the chief justice’s retirement reference, the PbBC vice chairman accused him of creating the conflict between the bar and bench.

At the end of October, the Supreme Court Bar Association elected Asma Jahangir as its leader. The new president aimed several criticisms the Supreme Court’s way in her first few speeches, saying it relied too much on suo motu actions, interfered in bar elections and was stepping on parliament’s legislative territory.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 31^st, 2010.

A blast badly damaged a Nato oil tanker in the bordering town of Chaman in Balochistan on Friday.

Official sources said unidentified people had planted an explosive device on the rear of the tanker. The device went of with a huge explosion when it reached near border with Afghanistan. Tanker caught fire because of blast.

One person sustained injuries as fire also engulfed a nearby car.

Fire fighters extinguished the fire. The blast and fire however badly damaged the oil tanker.

Attacks on Nato tankers have become a frequent occurrence.

Going by the majority of predictions made by our local pundits who analyse to death the political situation, on that front 2011 is destined to bring in much of a muchness. Though, as in this country plans tend to go no further than a day ahead, it is never safe to foretell what may happen even tomorrow.

Of late, in certain sections of the press, there have been mumblings and grumblings about the lack of a proper perspective in the military-civil relationship. Why, it is asked, is an essential principle of public service not evident? Why is it that elected governments are unable to set policies that are implemented by the army? How is it that it is the reverse in Pakistan (despite last year’s prime ministerial bloomer about ‘my army’), that the generals set the policies and the government — all governments — follow. How is it that the generals openly manipulate both government and parliament when not in direct power?

A brief surf through history should explain all. Since 1954, the army has been involved in politics, that is, since the country was but seven years old. The then army chief was invited into a civilian cabinet and appointed as defence minister. What does that tell anyone? It took him four years to take over the country and appoint himself president.

In Pakistan, the past is not another country — it hangs over the present as a suffocating pall of gloom. That overused string of words, subservience to Allah, America, the Army (in whichever order they are placed) encapsulates Pakistan’s past and present just as that other string of words, Unity, Faith, Discipline (in whichever order they are placed) do not exist in this country’s scheme of governance or politics. So much for Mr Jinnah!

Does anyone doubt, after WikiLeaks, that our army chief, General Ashfaq Kayani, is the most powerful man in Pakistan who heads the most powerful, the richest and the most disciplined party of an undisciplined lot? Are any of our international interlocutors in doubt that he is the man to talk to when they come to Pakistan — or even when a top flight delegation from this country departs on a begging trip? (One mistake the general made post-WikiLeaks was to have his spokesman tell us that he held the government and politicians in high esteem. After having picked them to pieces with the Americans, he would have done better to have remained mum.)

A spout of righteous indignation has been spurred by the leak that told us that General Kayani at one point, in one of his many conversations with the American ambassador, had discussed the possibility of getting rid of the president and appointing a man of his choice. How could he possibly do this? Is it not out of the bounds of all legality, constitutionality and what have you? Well, yes it is, but that is how things work in this country and always have worked. It would not have been a difficult task and could have been accomplished without the movement of one pair of boots. All one has to do is revert to 1993 when the then army chief, the now reclusive General Waheed Kakar, in one fell swoop, without waving his swagger stick, obtained the resignation of both president and prime minister.

And now this week, with various political movements in and out and lots of ‘demands’ (blackmail) being made by the movers and shakers, we are told that it is the ‘establishment’ that is behind it all. Now we all know what that word, used coyly in Victorian fashion as a cover up, refers to — it is the army and its agencies who poke their noses into every conceivable nook and cranny (even hassling media commentators).

There is little that is new under the Pakistani sun.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 1^st, 2011.