No smoke

without fire
We rarely live in times when a storm does not rage. But since Thursday night it has swirled still more strongly, with 17 judges of the Supreme Court meeting to discuss media reports of a government plan to withdraw the March 2009 notification restoring the judiciary. The word coming from the judges is loud and clear: All including the president and his men must know that those trying to turn the clock back to that day of infamy – November 3 2007 – are courting trouble. The so-called executive order has lost its effectiveness and cannot be used to hold an independent judiciary hostage. Any attempt to use it to dislodge the judiciary will be High Treason under Article 6 of the Constitution. Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry has refused to let the government hide behind allegations of manipulations by the media in the whole episode. He has categorically said that the reports were not false and ordered that the matter be probed.
Amidst mounting tension, conjecture on the matter had been continuing for hours – fuelled by speculation about the apex court's verdict in the NRO case. Those of us who have consistently followed political developments in our country through recent decades know that rumours do not rise from nothing. They are almost always founded on some basis and this definitely appears true this time too. The government has been at odds with the judiciary for months and we do not have to struggle to recall statements by government ministers and advisers – and by the prime minister himself on the floor of the National Assembly – hinting at a possible withdrawal of the executive order. There are reports that certain persons had been advising the president to deliver a blow to the judiciary. That by doing so the president would embark on the same disastrous course taken by his predecessor does not seem to have bothered them much. Should we call it desperation? The prompt action taken by the judges may just have averted a move that would have plunged the nation into a new state of turmoil. It has blown up right in the faces of those who were contemplating or had contemplated it. For the moment perhaps we can do without 'guessing' who these faces belong to and people may need very little imagination anyway to 'conjure' up certain familiar images in their minds to provide a collective visage to this murky business. The attorney general sought more time from the court to submit a signed note from the prime minister whose hesitation to come clean with the court with a clear statement of policy and intent on the issue of the executive order is shameful and telling. The delay in submitting the response the court asked for can only add to speculation. There can be no reason at all why a few lines could not be typed – except malafide intent.
The waters remain rocky – with the hearing on the matter adjourned till October 18. The tension mounting for days has now risen high. Lawyers are agitated. It is not hard to see a fiercer clash ahead between institutions. The rounds of sparring are heading towards what may be a climatic showdown. The government's refusal to abide by SC orders has led it into an extremely unstable patch of territory. It is unfortunate that the government has tried to lay the blame squarely on certain TV channels and their anchors. Everyone familiar with the media knows the ingredients that make up the present stew had been simmering for some time. The government has only itself to blame for what has happened. The way out of the swamp we stand in is now more difficult to find, with the willingness to accept a truly independent judiciary still absent from our political landscape.