EDITORIAL: Just when you feel that politicians and institutions running this country have had their fill of constitutional crises, at least for the time being, you wake up to headlines about the President’s own staff (allegedly) undermining his authority and possibly triggering the mother of all legal/constitutional thunderstorms.
It’s as if this is a cyclical process. Now, once again, the Supreme Court will have to put all else aside and interpret another provision of the constitution — Article 75 this time — while the whole nation waits to see who got his hand caught in the cookie jar in this game of cat and mouse that never seems to end.
How could it be that the president, the symbol of the unity of the federation and supreme commander of the country’s armed forces, was so easily hoodwinked? He said that he had sought confirmation “repeatedly” if his office had returned the Official Secrets (Amendment) Bill 2023 and the Pakistan Army (Amendment) Bill 2023 to parliament with his disapproval, yet found out later that he had been deceived; which is incredible.
Perhaps, while legal wizards try to wrap their heads around this part of the constitution, someone should clear if this discrepancy would or even could have occurred if the president had only followed his own precedent and attached a written record of his disapproval with the bills.
Also, if it is an appropriate procedure for the head of the state to divulge such betrayals through helpless tweets, that too more than 24 hours after news of those bills becoming laws was all over the place, while no formal legal process was initiated against the guilty.
To further confuse the already confounded situation, the principal secretary to the president, Ahmad Waqar, was transferred at the behest of the president that made it plain that he was the guilty person in this whole episode.
Waqar, in a confidential missive to the president, contents of which have appeared in the media, has categorically averred that there were no instructions from the president in writing and the two bills were never returned by him to the principal secretary for onward dispatch to parliament.
Whatever the facts – they must be investigated and must come out into the open – it appears there was an unwillingness to wait till the next elected National Assembly was in place to present these bills again. And the president’s way of trying to delay them, created a situation where his office, he himself and the law ministry have erred to the detriment of the prestige of the country.
Considering the gravity of this breach, from all sides, there needs to be a very urgent and transparent inquiry that will not only set the record straight regarding the letter and spirit of the constitution but also fix blame and ensure justice.
Meanwhile, a nation of more than 240 million people will have more food for thought as it becomes the joke of all international headlines all over again. Seen in isolation, the events of the last few days, especially the president’s revelation, are indeed unimaginable in a functioning democracy.
But given the backdrop of the zero-sum tug of war at the top of the country’s power chain, in which everything including law of the land and lives of the people became fair game, it isn’t exactly inconceivable that some players didn’t mind crossing this line as well in the quest for absolute power.
We don’t know who is guilty and to what extent just yet, no doubt, but there’s enough to show that far too many people, at the highest levels, have been breaking far too many rules for far too long. And it’s always “we the people” that suffer the most because of these transgressions.
Few people noticed that one of the first casualties of this latest controversy was investor confidence as the market duly nosedived, about 700 points, due to “political uncertainty” – so much for the buoyancy provided by the SBA (Stand-By Arrangement) with the IMF (International Monetary Fund).
It seems nobody at the top understands that there’s no chance of smart money coming to a country that’s combating default yet its leadership remains blissfully blinded by the quest for power and privilege.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023
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