Judiciary on test

PAKISTAN'S CHIEF EXECUTIVE, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, is performing to script. If he also happens to behave like Mr. Nawaz Sharif, the man he deposed in a military coup in October, neither is to be faulted. It is the bane of Pakistan's politics that the tolerance level of its rulers is zero. The result is that the country's democracy is condemned to be in perpetual suspension. Nearly 30 months ago, Mr. Sharif, heading a government that enjoyed an unprecedented majority in Parliament, dragged justice to the streets, letting his party hordes storm the premises of the Supreme Court and otherwise doing everything in his supreme power to denigrate a vital arm of democratic society. The country's judicial system carries the scars, remaining bruised still from that brawl. But the ordeal by fire in November 1997 has also helped forge some brave men as the happenings of the last few days demonstrate. In the half century of its existence, those hours were perhaps the finest for Pakistan's judiciary. By refusing to surrender to the diktats of the new rulers, the few judges - ``hardly 15 per cent'' of the total strength of the country's judiciary, reminds a spokesman of the military government in Islamabad - who preferred dismissal to swearing allegiance to the military regime have demonstrated extraordinary courage in these testing times and upheld the dignity of their profession. The legal fraternity in this country, preparing to celebrate the golden jubilee of the Supreme Court, has cause for cheer that the judicial fire has not been totally extinguished in neighbouring Pakistan, which shares the same legacy.

By dismissing the country's Chief Justice and a dozen of his colleagues in the Supreme Court, Gen. Musharraf has removed one potential roadblock as he seeks to tighten his grip on power. There was urgency to act since a clutch of petitions challenging military rule and the overthrow of the civilian government is to come up for hearing before the Supreme Court in a week's time. If the court's record is any guide for him, there was no guarantee that his coup will not be declared illegal or even the Sharif Government reinstated. The possibility for such a dreadful course existed as long as the judiciary owed allegiance to the Constitution that Gen. Musharraf suspended when he seized power on October 12. It was essential that the judges hearing the petitions against him knew and acknowledged the new rules: they had no authority, under the Provisional Constitutional Order No. 1 he had promulgated, to entertain plaints against the actions of his Government. Judges considered too inconvenient to the military rulers were got rid of using this ploy. One illegality to cover up another. Pakistan has seen similar blatant distortions before as the new strongman puts to use the experience of his uniformed predecessors.

Gen. Musharraf's coup against the judiciary delivers one more knock to the legitimacy that he has been assiduously seeking, taking some of the shine off the endorsement he received during a hurriedly-arranged visit to Beijing. As he puts into practice the Stalinist dictum, ``when in doubt liquidate'', it must be clear to the international community that the former army chief is in no hurry to set a timetable for a return to democracy and civilian rule. With friends of the regime in the West showing increasing signs of impatience, particularly with his failure to initiate vital economic reforms at home, the choice before Gen. Musharraf is clear. Rein in the fundamentalist parties which seem to be having a free run and are threatening the country's stability and secondly move credibly toward democratic elections. The alternative is the beaten path, traversed by earlier military rulers with disastrous consequences for Pakistan.

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