How much the PPP-led federal government feels threatened by the looming lawyers' long march, the botched-up promulgation of a presidential ordinance to set up mobile courts on Sunday tells it all? The ordinance envisages setting up junior courts all over Pakistan with powers to visit crime sites and pronounce on the spot sentences up to six months.
No problem with such an objective; in fact, there has been a longstanding demand for courts which can deliver inexpensive and speedy justice to the people on their doorsteps. The problem is with its timing and the surreptitious manner in which it was issued. The said law was promulgated in violation of the constitution that forbids issuance of an ordinance when the National Assembly is in session.
The text of the ordinance issued by the official news agency, APP, on Sunday says it was promulgated the same day - that is, when the National Assembly was in session. One is not surprised that presidential spokesman Farhatullah Babar has tried to cover up this lapse by saying that the said ordinance was issued a day before the assembly met.
No wonder, the lawyers and the mainstream opposition party PML (N) have condemned the promulgation of this ordinance, timed as it seems to be with the lawyers' long march and sit-in. They argue that the government has tried to overawe the marching lawyers by threatening on-the-spot trial and punishment. Some other critics see the ordinance as bait to lure young lawyers for appointment as magistrates in return for keeping away from the protest. Will this threat work?
Only time will tell, but apparently no lawyer is expected to lose his steam in the face of these courts. But members of civil society may be reluctant to run the gauntlet of on-the-spot trial. Significantly, however, the move tends to suggest that government's earlier action of imposing governor's rule on Punjab, perceptibly a manoeuvre to deprive lawyers of PML (N)-headed provincial government's support in their long-march, has not succeeded in breaking the momentum of lawyers' movement.
Farhatullah Babar says the mobile courts are expected to deliver speedy justice on the people's doorsteps in remote regions - almost like Maulana Sufi Muhammad's qazi courts in Malakand Division. But that similarity is quite paradoxical, in that while the qazi courts have been a popular demand, the mobile courts intended to be set up by the government have been criticised as 'civilian martial law courts'.
No doubt, courts that can try simple offences and promptly give verdicts are much needed in the country. For years, hundreds of thousands of litigants have been turning up at courts every day, but decisions elude them like an ever-receding mirage. But the manner in which the said ordinance has been promulgated and its timing coincidental to the long march makes it suspect. It confirms the unfortunate perception that these mobile courts would be used by the government to suppress the lawyers' movement.
Not only are courts painfully slow in delivering justice, they are also notoriously amenable to political pressures and persuasions. The stigma of courts subordinating themselves to administrative authority remains. Then they, particularly the superior courts, have been used by successive governments to indemnify grievous offences like sedition and subversion in the name of 'doctrine of necessity'.
Therefore, it would a great tragedy if the very genuine cause of delivering speedy and inexpensive justice on the doorsteps of the poor and hapless millions becomes the first casualty of political tussle as seems to be the case now. Such a law was always needed. And if the present administration did not feel impelled to enact during the last one year it should have waited another month or so.
Or, the government should have tabled in the parliament its bill for legislation. Now that it has been tainted with political motivations it may or may not help the present administration it is definitely a loss for the ordinary people of Pakistan.