Cruelty of injustice at the hands of police, lawyers and lower judiciary

Shafqat Munir

Actually I articulated a few thoughts the other day with heavy heart as some 'scavengers' are polluting the face of otherwise an honourable constitutional institution, the Supreme Court. If you read The News on Sunday's special reports on issues of judicial accountability, activism and the way another sacred cow is serving the interests of the pro establishment politicians and a hand full of media manipulators, would raise serious questions about the institution and those polluting it.

The corruption of lawyers, police and lower judiciary is spoiling lives of millions of people in the country as these three institutions are promoting injustice and minting millions of rupees every day. If some one does an action research while interviewing hundreds of thousands of people facing the cruelty of injustice at the hands of police, lawyers and judiciary would find how corrupt are the judges who in collaboration with police and lawyers mint money and dispense injustice and put innocent people behind bar after getting money from rival parties or due to their own insensitivity.

If some research is done on the written judgments of judges from lower to superior courts, one would find many discrepancies and unlawful intent and in-sensitivities expressed by the judges but you know police, lawyers and judges think they are the above the law and they are 'Aql-e-qul' and there is no law that binds them to observe the people's fundamental rights. Now a days, judges, lawyers and police are set free to ruin every thing and there is no accountability for them.

Since law favours to those who spend money, thanks to police, lawyers and judges, justice is hardly dispensed. There are instances where, police gets arrest warrants of the people who could not reach to courts to attend years long hearing due to any hardship or other reasons and hence they mint money by approaching them showing them arrest warrants. In normal circumstances, the police do not convey any summons from the courts to the people who are involved in false or even true cases and when some times passes and a few such court summons are not conveyed to the people, then the police completes its file getting the poor accused announced by the courts as ‘proclaimed offenders’. This increase rates of the police and special police staff. If the police properly convey the summons by the courts to those who are required to appear in the courts, then cases could be disposed off in time but police with fictitious entries in the file makes cases complicated. The judges from the lower courts or their staff favours police in such cases as police share the money they extort from the people. This vicious circle goes on. The Chief Justice and all other judges and lawyers know very well but they the CJ perhaps do not feel about the poor people as they cannot make headline for him in media or otherwise. SINCE CHIEF JUSTICES DO NOT TAKE NOTICE OF IT, SO THE INJUSTICE IS BEING DONE WITH MILLIONS OF PEOPLE. THAT IS WHY NOW PEOPLE OF PAKISTAN FEEL IT STRONGLY THAT THIS JUDICIARY ONLY PROVIDES JUSTICE TO MONEY RICH SHARIFS AND IMRANS AND NOT THE POOR CITIZENS.

It is a routine that judges of the lower courts are so kind on the police that they issues such arrests for hundreds of people in each city. This money-making goes on. Judiciary is fast emerging as a sacred cow because they are an organized political party supported by lawyers and those opposition parties who are in hurry to pack up parliament and democracy from the country and cannot wait for their turn.

This is unfortunate that speaking about accountability of judiciary which is not corruption free and which is not dispensing justice and doing selective justice tantamount to contempt of court. Contempt of a real court, which dispenses justice and not one sided and selective justice makes sense but a partisan court would definitely get some criticism as court decisions are debatable on merit. If these decisions are based on justice and observe the principle of independence, and impartiality, then the people across the board will hail them but if there is an issue of intent of damaging one side, providing relief to other rival political force and decisions are politically motivated then, questions will be raised and this is what precisely being happened in the country.

My humble submission is that there is still time that the Chief Justice can restore his image of a hero of the Pakistanis, if he chooses not to indulge in politically motivated moves of opposition destabilizing the democratic system. Better he provides relief to millions of common people and not only to Shahbaz Sharif, Nawaz Sharif and Imran Khan and others like them. The Honourable Chief Justice should dent the vicious cycle of police, lawyers and lower judiciary at whose hands, hundreds of thousands of Pakistanis are suffering a lot on daily basis.

The Chief Justice and fellow judges should have set the example of deciding categorically the case of Dr Arslan Iftikhar and Malik Riaz instead of passing the buck to NAB. I am among millions of those Pakistanis who used to chant slogans 'Chief teray jan nisar- beshumar beshumar' but now like other millions, I sincerely feel that providing relief to Sharifs and Imrans would not serve the cause of rule of law and constitutionalism, the honourable Chief Justice. Rule of Law can prevail if in tehsil and district courts under your control, people get justice and they are provided protection from the highhandedness of police, lawyers and judiciary.

I SINCERELY APPEAL TO THOSE WHO ARE DAMAGING THE IMAGE OF THE SUPREME COURT USING IT AGAINST THEIR POLITICAL RIVALS TO PLEASE STOP THIS GAME AND LET THE SUPREME COURT THINK OF DOING ITS CONSTITUTIONAL ROLE TO PROTECT THE RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE AND DISPENSE THEM JUSTICE AS COURT OF LAST RESORT. PLEASE DO NOT REDUCE THE SUPREME COURT TO A TRIAL COURT OF A DISTRICT LEVEL.