The case of Gilani

The law defines the defiance and disobedience of court rulings or directives as contempt of court and provides a well charted course of action against the offenders. But what does one call an attempt to stifle and obstruct the natural, unavoidable and obvious consequences that must inevitably flow from a contempt of court verdict to escape the full extent of the penalty?

Should we call it ‘contempt of contempt of court’? By his shameful refusal to acknowledge that the gig is up, Gilani has pushed things well beyond a comedy of errors. It is no longer simply a question of bumbling fools knowing no better than to make a mess. The malaise that Pakistan is suffering is a national tragedy, induced by malicious and malevolent intent.

It is a product solely of the narrow self-serving machinations of a tainted few at the cost of rule of law and the common good. It is, to borrow the words of William Faulkner, ‘a monstrous burlesque of all bereavement.’ The incumbent rulers continue their headlong plunge into new depths of legal and political fires. But unlike Dante’s Divine Comedy, no salvation awaits them on the other side of this ordeal. Nobody would care, save for the fact that they are jeopardising national interests by bringing parliament into conflict with the Supreme Court to save their own skins.

As brilliant as the Supreme Court’s verdict in Gilani’s contempt of court case is, Justice Asif Khosa deserves an award of some sort for his additional note in which he has explicitly spelled out the prevailing state of affairs in this country with striking poignancy. He quoted Khalil Gibran, and very rightly so. There are few corners of the human heart that are impervious to the magic Gibran weaves with his words. In The Frontier, he wrote ‘Are you a politician who says to himself: “I will use my country for my own benefit?” ... Or are you a devoted patriot, who whispers in the ear of his inner self: “I love to serve my country as a faithful servant”.’

No extraordinary legal expertise is required to understand the self-evident fact that there are some court verdicts that produce a direct consequence, whereas others unleash a chain of events in accordance with well established precedents, invoking provisions of various bodies of law, which must culminate in a specified outcome. The indirect nature of the later category of rulings does not in any shape or manner diminish their legal force, validity or legitimacy. For instance, in Gilani’s contempt of court case, the court, in its short order, sentenced Gilani to be detained in the court room till the rising of the court. This part of the ruling was a direct order. If Gilani had tried to leave the court room before the rising of the court, the concerned security personnel would have been under obligation to stop him and they would require no further orders or sanction from any superior officers or other authority.

But the short order went beyond this. It proclaimed that Gilani’s defiant refusal to fully implement the NRO verdict was ‘substantially detrimental to the administration of justice’ and that it had brought ‘this court and the judiciary of this country into ridicule.’ The detailed judgment further explicates and elucidates this view so as to leave no ambiguity. This part of the ruling produces indirect consequences since it inescapably invokes Article 63(1)g of the Constitution. If there was any doubt whether Article 63(1)g is invoked or not, the Supreme Court has made it clear that the only mitigating factor in passing a lenient sentence against Gilani is that he is likely to suffer further punishment under this article of the Constitution.

Article 63(1)g stipulates that a person shall be disqualified from being a member of parliament if ‘... he is propagating any opinion, or acting in any manner, prejudicial to ... the integrity or independence of the judiciary of Pakistan, or which defames or brings into ridicule the judiciary ...’ Since the court order specifies that Gilani has ridiculed the judiciary, little is left to the imagination regarding the consequences that must now flow under Article 63(1)g, the jiyalas’ customary hue and cry notwithstanding.

Therefore, in this case, Article 63(2) makes it incumbent upon the speaker of the National Assembly to move a reference before the chief election commissioner regarding Gilani’s disqualification from being a member of parliament. No law in this land gives the speaker or the CEC the authority to exercise any discretion in this matter and any attempt on their part to do so would evidently amount to a subversion of the Constitution, possibly punishable under Article 6 of the Constitution.

It is bound to put parliament on a collision course with the judiciary, which would be an unmitigated disaster for the country. It will generate a new constitutional crisis. And all this for what? If the government’s stand was based on high moral principles in the service of the nation or to defend national pride and sovereignty, every man, woman and child would stand firmly behind them. But such is far from the case. They are set to defy the courts and the constitution and gamble with the country’s future only to help a notorious man of global ill-repute keep his ill-gotten loot.

We are confronted with a very sorry state of affairs indeed: A handful of judges are fighting for the supremacy and writ of law along with the welfare, rights and interests of the people, but those elected by the people and vested with a great deal of hope and expectations, who are under oath to serve the people, protect national interests and uphold the law, are in the vanguard of a surreptitious thrust of underhanded intrigues to undermine the law, callously barter away national interests and sovereignty for narrow self-interests and abandon the people to their own devices, defenceless under the storm clouds of poverty and lawlessness, without a trace of hope for a better tomorrow.

How can a convicted man represent Pakistan on foreign visits to meet foreign heads of state? Having effectively lost the right to continue in office, how can he speak on our behalf, let alone sign accords or enter into treaties? It is a national disgrace, but the thick-skinned feel no twinge of shame. Not only did Gilani deem it proper to undertake his visit to Britain with a constitutional storm hovering over his head, but he also saw it fit to take with him a massive delegation of more than 70 sycophants for a state subsidised vacation.

Even though Gilani stands as thoroughly disgraced under legal and constitutional authority as possible, what about the requirements of honour and morality? Do they count for nothing? Aristophanes wrote “Wise men, though all laws were abolished, would lead the same lives.” But we are not talking about wise men, are we? We are talking about men who reportedly declared that they can only be removed from the corridors of power in ambulances. They treat the country like their personal domain and trample over laws and all norms of decent democratic conduct with reckless abandon.

Politicians have been known to resign on lesser grounds around the world, even on unsubstantiated allegation, let alone convictions. In April 2007, Polish Construction Minister, Barbara Blinda, committed suicide in her bathroom as Poland’s Internal Security Agency searched her home in connection with a corruption probe. In May 2009, former South Korean President, Roh Moo-Hyun, committed suicide by throwing himself off a mountain rather than facing corruption allegations, even though no formal charges had been filed at that time. It is no surprise that our lot are unfamiliar with such honour and self-respect.

The writer is vice-chairman of the Sindh National Front and a former MPA from Ratodero. He has degrees from the University of Buckingham and Cambridge University.