” Zalmo Qazi Aa Raha Hai”, was one of the catchiest political slogans of Pakistan’s murky political history. Finally today, after more than thirty years, the Qazi has arrived, but in the process he has undergone a change of name from Qazi Hussain Ahmed, to Qazi Faez Issa. The Qazi who had crafted the slogan was the leader of Jamaat e Islami. His slogan caught on because even then, as now, the people of Pakistan believed that the greatest “ZULM” inflicted on Pakistan, from which all other injustices took birth, was that of the naked corruption by the elite. And following the example of these elites we, the lesser ones, also joined the party, lined our pockets, and helped to destroy our value system.
This was so mercilessly destroyed that today, theft in high places is taken as a right, while the odd man trying to survive any taint of theft is looked down upon as one who is soft in the head!
If any ONE reason is to be singled out as the cause of Pakistan’s steep decline from a young country soaring on the wings of hope, to one stuck deep in the mire of utter disillusionment, this has to be the pursuit of unquenchable greed of its leaders in every sphere, the kills made during this pursuit, and the immunity enjoyed by them against the crime of this blood-letting. The expectations held with regard to Justice Qazi Issa are varied to the extent of being contradictory. A few hold him up as a judge of great legal insight driven by principles. Many say he is a man of moods, and his judgments are likely to be dictated by the side of the bed he got up from. And most, of whom I am one, see him as a judge severely compromised, and a man circumscribed by hypocrisy.
His stance on the basis of which he [or his family] sought exoneration on the charge of possessing assets beyond means, when shorn of all legalese, amounted to an unprincipled assertion of a right of judge to stand beyond the reach of the relevant law on this subject. In short, his position was that whereas lesser beings could be charged for having assets beyond their known means of income, a judge was too elevated a rank to fall in the ambit of a law made for the low and the mean.
But his greatest sin was his squelching of the Hudaibya case, and in thus doing, providing exoneration in perpetuity to the biggest crime family of Pakistan. This was the only open and shut case of mega corruption in Pakistan’s legal history, backed by a most detailed and unshakable confession by one of the participants in it. In this case Justice Issa WILFULLY chose to stand by the letter of the law, instead of following its spirit, the window for which was opened for him by the directions of the Supreme Court, had he chosen to use this window. He KNEW that this case was rendered deliberately time barred by Chairman NAB, the very highest officer of the law who, instead of pursuing wrong doers to their graves, chose instead to get them out of their graves, to give them a fresh lease of life. Justice Issa thus cemented the efforts of the most corrupt man ever to head NAB and stood by him, instead of standing by the cause of justice.
Spiritually therefore, on the face of it, both Justice Issa and the army high command seem to be driven by the same impulse. Whereas the Qazi locked the gates of jail which lay in front of the most corrupt family of Pakistan, the army high command betrayed its oath and its country, overthrew its legal government, and handed the entire country over to a clutch of its most acclaimed criminals. Talk of doing things on a grand scale!
Just as the high command will never be forgiven for what they have done, so won’t the Qazi. But he has thirteen months and a week lying ahead of him in which to atone for his sins, unlike the high command which, despite a change at its top, seems dedicated to reinforcing its original crime with ever new ones, each passing day.
If Justice Issa chooses to stand by his country as he once stood by the sordid Sharif family in the Hudaibiya case, he will per force HAVE to stand against the high command. His first bang of the gavel at a moment both timely and telling, will set the course for his own redemption as well as that of his country’s. This will raise him from the bottom drawer right to the top. The applause of a crushed people will be sweeter than that of the trumpet which ushered him in.
And if per chance, he is inclined this way, let him begin with his own house of inequity. Let him pull the gowns off Justice Amir Farooq, and Judge Humayun Dullavar, and shove their wigs in their nether regions. This will provide considerable comic relief to the people at large, and legal relief to those who have suffered the injustices meted out by them. This one small step can then lead to a succession of many longer and weightier ones.
Never has this poor country and its despoiled people yearned for a hero as they do today. Will the Chief Justice rise from behind the smirk he passes on as a smile, and a foaming mouth with which he dispenses displeasure, and show us that his name accords with the office he holds, in the spirit which it is supposed to have been held since fourteen hundred years ago?