Musharraf's sentence

The special court trying former COAS and president General Pervez Musharraf (retd) has through a short order found him guilty of high treason and delivered a split punishment 2-1, with the dissenting judge recommending life imprisonment rather than the death sentence imposed by the majority. The range of responses to this unprecedented verdict fall within the predictable. First and foremost, the army through its DG ISPR has expressed its dismay at the outcome, strongly criticising the verdict as delivered in haste while ignoring due legal process, including the constitution of a special court, denial of the fundamental right of self-defence, and undertaking individual-specific proceedings. Further, that the verdict has been received with a lot of pain and anguish by the rank and file of the military. The charges on which Musharraf was arraigned included the imposition of an Emergency on November 3, 2007 (thereby abrogating the Constitution) and forcibly confining more than 60 judges in their residences. While the defence counsel for Musharraf and the government and its allies have argued against the judgement in absentia as denying the defendant an opportunity to record his statement, the fact is, according to the special court, that Musharraf was offered at least six opportunities to record his statement in one manner or the other but failed to do so. It was held therefore that having been pronounced an absconder whose properties were seized as a result of non-appearance, the accused had forfeited his right of a defence. As to 'haste', the facts are noteworthy. The case was filed in 2013, Musharraf was indicted in 2014, but left Pakistan for Dubai in 2016 on medical grounds. He has not returned since and is presently reportedly seriously ill. The government, in the shape of the Attorney General for Pakistan has expressed its intention to appeal against the verdict once the detailed judgement is available, which should be in the next few days. Again predictably, the opposition parties, almost to a man, have appreciated and celebrated the verdict as strengthening democracy and constitutional rule.

The unprecedented charging and trial of a former COAS and president is truly an epochal, historic event. This is true even if the final result on appeal turns out different from the special court's finding and punishment. It would have been inconceivable in the past to even consider such a course against a former chief of the most powerful state institution. Despite the fact that a succession of army chiefs mounted military coups in our history, thereby theoretically inviting the serious charge of high treason since they abrogated or held in suspension the supreme law of the land, the Constitution, the superior judiciary invariably upheld their actions on the grounds of the infamous doctrine of necessity, which were also validated by whatever parliaments were created in the wake of these coups. That is why Pervez Musharraf escaped any consequences for his 1999 coup and later tripped himself up by his ill-advised actions in 2007. It could be argued that the verdict may not entirely survive an appeal and even if it does, seems unlikely to be implemented by any stretch of the imagination. When historians look back at this judgement in 2019, they could be tempted to cast it as a turning point in Pakistan's history of repeated military coups and interventions and their validation by the superior judiciary and parliament. Certainly this verdict holds the promise of giving pause for thought to any future military coup maker.