The principles of democracy

Although, Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary defines words 'banana republic' as "a poor country with a weak government, that depends on foreign money" what essentially distinguishes a functional democracy from a banana republic is the inviolability of its citizens' fundamental rights.
The rights enjoyed by the citizens under the constitution cannot be compromised and curtailed in deference to the so-called 'reason of state' and 'national interest'. Thanks to independent judiciary, in Pakistan also this is no more a textbook supposition but a reality on the ground, in that the Supreme Court has asked the heads of the country's three premier intelligence agencies to come up with truth about the 11 prisoners who went missing from the Adiala Jail after their acquittal by the court last May.
That Attorney General Maulvi Anwarul Haq kept denying the agencies' hand in those disappearances was diabolic to say the least when the Chief Secretary of Punjab, under whose jurisdiction the said jail falls, had informed the court in writing that the kidnappings was the handiwork of intelligence agencies. And what a climb-down by the Attorney General; on the third day of hearing when he takes a turn and requests the court to hear the agencies point of view in private. For the first time in Pakistan the powerful chiefs of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Military Intelligence (MI) and Intelligence Bureau (IB) have been ordered by the court to submit their comments on the plaint made on behalf of the 11 missing persons. They have to do it by November 25, and "all will have to appear after the reply is received," says the court order.
It is no clash of the titans as some may like to project; it is implementation of the constitutional provisions that grant the citizens a clutch of fundamental rights. In the order Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, who heads the three-member bench hearing the case, underscored the imperative of securing the citizens' fundamental rights. The apex court, he said, is responsible for safeguarding its constitutional obligations keeping in view Articles, 9, 25, 4 and 10-A of the Constitution. The Attorney General's somewhat maverick stand also earned the court's observation that 'it should not be forced to go to extreme end' which may entail complications, but the 'country cannot afford clash among the institutions'.
Even when the superior judiciary is being unduly dubbed, no one can deny the fact that the courts are trying their best to avert the clash of institutions, its verdict on the petitions against the 18th Amendment being the most profound example. We expect that intelligence chiefs would be in attendance at the court where they would be heard in-camera, something not unusual in the cases of sensitive nature. The courts are never party to the cases before them, they hear both sides with open mind and decide according to the law.
Without making any comment on the merits and demerits of the case before the apex court we would like to juxtapose two equally compelling contentions that are likely to play out as the case would be heard. One, a citizen's fundamental rights are sacrosanct and the courts are bound to protect them. Since under the circumstances that prevail in Pakistan today most of the threats to his/her rights tend to stem rightly or wrongly, from the state apparatus, the concerned departments have to develop a fair, human and legal culture to deal with the alleged accused. Frankly, the concerned departments and agencies have earned a negative public perception in light of painful disclosures by former president General Pervez Musharraf that hundreds of Pakistanis were handed over to the United States without court's interventions for dollars. Given the state-of-the-art investigation techniques available to the investigating agencies there is no reason why an accused if guilty cannot be proved so in the court of law.
Why to keep suspects in dungeons forever? Two, every one taken into custody by the agencies is not innocent. Consider the level of terrorism buffeting the country; after all some one is behind all this. How do you penetrate the network if you don't question the one in your custody? The bitter fact is that the guilty are so dangerously powerful that prosecution often fails to get one punished. But having said this we cannot justify or buy so many things that are carried out by the state in the name of national interest. We will never be in favour of an extreme RIGHT-WING political system or attitude which is in favour of perversely strong central government and which does not allow any opposition. Any political system refusing to allow dissent becomes a tyranny.