Between them, the Supreme Court led by Mr Justice Saqib Nisar, P.M Imran Khan, and Gen Bajwa a near miracle may have been wrought in Pakistan. For the first time the monster of mega corruption is being seen for what it means, what it can do, and the depths to which it has degraded Pakistan.
It has not just destroyed the economy of the country; it has compromised national security like no other disaster to have hit the country. It has frayed the moral fiber of the nation; and it has destroyed nearly every institution. It has destroyed the rule of law; and it has made the bartering of national interest fashionable among many of our “elites”, especially among our rogue “intellectuals” and many of the sold-out media persons.
Mega corruption has brought rot to everything that was good about Pakistan. In short it may have written for the country its swan song.
But finally, it seems, a stand will be made against the almighty pillars of corruption-those that seemed to be beyond the power of anyone to touch. At long last one is daring to believe that no one is above the law. It seems a real possibility now, that those who sold out our tomorrows, and the future of our children, shall not only be put through the wringer to surrender our stolen wealth, but will also pay with in terms of long sighs and piercing screams. No one has done more to bring about the resuscitation of hope and redemption to the people of Pakistan than our Supreme Court and our Chief Justice. And how proud I feel by taking their ownership by calling them “our”!
It is being said that the Court and the Chief Justice are unduly “activist”. The average Pakistani can only bless them for being so. Who but the Court could have taken Suo Motos to bring to the consciousness of even the poorest Pakistani that clean water, and medical care, and decent education were his rights? Who could have thought that an overseas Pakistani whose property had been “grabbed” would ever knock on the doors of the S.C and hope that he would be heard? Which police officer or civil servant could ever entertain the notion that when he was being pressured by powerful politicians to commit illegalities, they could make recourse to the highest court in the land and find support there? Who could have thought that the Court would decide in favour of a DPO against a Chief Minister? It would have had to be a fool to have entertained the fantasy, just a year ago, that Crime Kings like the Sharifs and Zardaris could ever be brought low, or if someone like Malik Riaz Hussain [whose proudest boast was that he had bought all those who mattered in this unfortunate land] would be brought to the verge of losing his corrupt empire? Indeed, it was thought beyond the realm of possibility that the land mafia, who have for long been the single most powerful agents of transfer of wealth from the powerless to the most powerful, shall ever be challenged. But our Supreme Court has moved in this direction.
There is a lot that our senior judges have changed, but their single greatest gift is to have altered the thinking of Pakistanis, fired their imaginations, and giving them hope.
And yet for all our senior justices have done for us, they need to do a trifle more.
–There is little doubt in anyone’s mind that the CJ and brother judges, the Army Chief, and the PM joined hands to save the country from total disaster. How deep the disaster really was, has. only now been uncovered. Figures for money stolen are truly astronomical. The amount of money owed by Pakistan is huge and every institution lies in ruins. And there is no one to bail Pakistan out. This is a national emergency if ever there was one. The Chief Justice must informally raise this issue with the other two of the triumvirate. The possibility of imposing an emergency rule and what the goals of this will be should at least be discussed. An early discussion on this subject would be much better than suddenly waking up to it while sleepwalking in the midst of such a realization.
–The best decision of the PM was to be his own Interior Minister, and his worst failure has been not to have had any idea of the extent to which every institution has been destroyed and officers serving in them, hopelessly compromised. At best of times these services suffered from lack of capacity, and yet he is now depending on these officers to bring good governance to the country. He is picking them up on the basis of conjecture and speculation. It will take years before such officers either prove or disprove themselves. And Pakistan does not have time on its side. We are like a broken army which should daily be expecting an attack from any direction. What does an army do in such circumstances? It calls to service all able-bodied men. In these circumstances the PM is ignoring completely that pool of officers where no speculation is required. Where there is certainty. And these are those officers from the police, civil services, or armed forces who are now retired, but who went out of service without taint to their integrity or question to their ability. He should change some rules governing the services and draft all such officers on contract and give them the senior most positions to serve in. Men with proven capacity and integrity should be considered a national asset most needed to be put to work for the country. The C.J should do his utmost to bring this to the cognizance of the PM.
–Of all the institutions the most rot-infested is NAB. And NAB needs to be put right both to rehabilitate the rule of law by driving the fear of God in the hearts of the criminals, as also to get back Pakistan’s stolen assets without which Pakistan may not be able to survive. As an initial member of NAB, and having monitored its steady deterioration, I can quite confidently state that it has not zero, but negative capacity at the moment. And for years it has been run for criminals and by criminals. What can be left of an institution the last three Chairmen of which have been selections made by Malik Riaz Hussain, and endorsed by Zardari and Nawaz Sharif?
The C.J has done so much for Pakistan. He thus has both weight and credibility to advise the PM and the Army Chief. He should thus advise them on the issue of NAB as well. Wholesale changes are required in this organization. As a first step men like Dr Shuaib Suddle and Mr Tariq Khosa should be inducted as Senior DGs–a special title created for them. Then a whole host of the very best investigators should be brought out of retirement to work under Messers Suddle and Khosa, who should be able to recommend and hire the very best prosecutors on a case-to-case basis. For the moment only the most important cases should be clubbed together and divided for investigation between the two senior DGs who should also oversee their prosecution by handpicked prosecutors. NAB should then expand its operation as its capacity expands.
–Concurrently there should be changes in the way convicts are allotted “class” in jail. Mega corruption should be taken as a crime of moral turpitude and all those convicted on this charge should be given C class in jail. And the Jail Superintendents should be monitored to ensure that the Jail Manual is strictly followed. Only if Jail stops resembling a picnic, can there be any hope of return of stolen national assets. The “plea bargain” clause should be amended and brought into play only AFTER conviction. That is the time the convict should be given a bill of what he owes to the state. If he pays it, he should serve just two calendar years and then be released. Or he should serve life. Even after release he should not be allowed to leave the country, so that he has little opportunity to enjoy the still hidden fruits of his theft.
–The C.J and the Court must ensure that the drive against the land mafia takes an ongoing character. It must be understood that in every Mohalla of every town there are land grabbers, and they are easily identifiable. It should also be understood that these mafioso cannot function without abetment by the police and the patwari. The Court must move the government to make stringent but practicable laws against land grabbing, or at the very least create certain precedents by court orders which can in future be cited to break the backs of land mafia.
–The Court must create a precedent whereby any housing society found guilty of criminality should become the property of the state. And this should begin from the top. from Malik Riaz Hussain, who is the biggest land fraudster in Pakistan. The Court already has him where it wants him. His nexus with Malir Development Authority in the perpetration of crime should be enough to divest him of his property and send him to jail. The next question would be, what happens to Bahria Town Malir. For this an Administrator will have to be appointed.
There are some [not many] retired army officers who have run DHAs and came away from there with their reputations for integrity and ability intact. Such officers would need to be sought out and asked to run such societies, and the bankers instructed to keep their extant rules of business with such societies alive.
–A precedent should be created whereby any officer being pressured to commit illegality can knock the door of the Court and be assured of legal protection.
–No powerful convict should be investigated in Sindh, nor serve time in Sindh prisons. These jails are themselves the safest manufactories of crime. All such imprisonments should take place in designated jails of the Punjab.
The heart shudders and the hand trembles as one even begins to tabulate the crimes committed against Pakistan, and thinks of the ranks of those who’ve committed them. They could only have been checked if people of equal rank and heft chose to make a stand against them. And by God’s miraculous grace this may have happened. The Chief Justice and his brother judges, the P.M, and the Army Chief chose to make a joint stand for Pakistan. But the criminals have only been checked, they need to be checkmated and destroyed, and national wealth retrieved. No one can do more in this direction than the C.J, his brother judges, and the Court. And this they MUST do. They cannot afford the luxury of failure, for this will mean the sinking of the boat which we call Pakistan.
P.S As I have written this I am acutely aware that judges are not supposed to be involved with giving advice to the executive on how a state ought to be run. But it is the Times that should dictate what the officers of the state are “supposed” to do or not do. These times are such that the very survival of the State is at stake. This is the time of a most dire national emergency. So, the fiction of “democracy” should be put aside for the present till survival is assured, and all offices should come to the salvaging of Pakistan. If the state does not survive, neither will “democracy.”