A piece of paper called the Constitution
The 1973 Constitution of Pakistan is the oft quoted by the PPP Government as the inviolable document of rights and responsibilities of the state. The Government goes round telling everyone that it is the champion protector of the Constitution of Pakistan and it cries foul at the slightest hint of deviation from the letter and spirit of the Constitution; so I decided to look at the last five years of this PPP Government (supported of course directly by MQM and PML Q and ‘indirectly’ by PML N) in light of compliance to some of the articles of the constitution. This
is obviously not an original idea so I am not claiming it so.
Article 25
(1) All citizens are equal before law and are entitled to equal protection of law.
In the last five years, at the risk of stating the very very obvious, this article has been violated everyday of by the armies of VIPs who demand and live a life of complete exception to this article. So you see the rich, corrupt, infamous and the powerful, riding bullet and death proof SUVs with dark tainted windows (against the law of course) blocking roads as they whiz past the seriously aggravated people waiting on either sides to cross the road to get to work, school, hospital, home or even to a graveyard. I remember a lady gave birth to a baby whilst waiting for a VIP to drive by first. This same equality and protection is accorded to ‘All citizens’ in other aspects of their lives! It will be reasonable to conclude that in the last five years there has been little or no equality and protection offered by the Government to the citizens so this article stands violated.
Article 25 A (also see Article 11; Slavery, forced labour, etc. prohibited.)
“The State shall provide free and compulsory education to all children of the age of five to sixteen years in such manner as may be determined by law.”
In all fairness the article only says free education and not ‘good quality education’ so the Government can perhaps be forgiven for falling back to the lowest possible standard of primary and secondary education there can be. After the last five years of this lovely Government, perhaps it would be reasonable to ask any random person in any village, town or city in Pakistan their opinion about state provided education; I will not insult you by attempting answer that one for you. The millions of children working as slaves/servants in workshops, houses, factories and on the streets is enough for us to realise that this article of the constitution has no value. Those who attend a real school as opposed to a ghost school (a school that only exists on paper) do not get anything that can be called a reasonable education; it certainly is not a preparation for life.
Article 15
“Every citizen shall have the right to remain in, and, subject to any reasonable restriction imposed by law in the public interest, enter and move freely throughout Pakistan and to reside and settle in any part thereof.”
From what I can tell, the Government has confused "public interest" with very narrow party interest and hence they have imposed restrictions on free movement of citizens on a daily basis to facilitate the lives and movements of the inept armies of Z-list VIPs. Queue jumping has been raised to a new national standard if you have a piece of paper with the signature of a high enough VIP. Today the people of Islamabad are facing one such exemption to free movement as Tahir ul Qadri prepares to move his protesters, peacefully he claims, to exercise his constitutional right to move and protest. So the fact the people of Rawalpindi and Islamabad cannot carry on their legitimate business is a violation of their constitutional right despite the Government claim of the usual excuse of ‘law and order.’ Remember the same excuse was used when PTI marched to Waziristan. This excuse is never used when PPP, PML N and MQM organise their rallies to tell people about how lovey 5 years of democracy has been.
Article 15 (2)
“No person shall be subjected to torture for the purpose of extracting evidence.”
I shall not say much about this; just read about the daily business of our Police force. This Government, like previous governments, have used the Police as its personal armed servants whose job is to do the biddings of the ruling party instead of enforcing the Constitution of Pakistan. Torture is a way of life in Karachi as we all know and often (but not always) it is the Police that are used for it. Our Police stations are used as torture cells to extract ‘confessions’ from people whose only crime is to be poor and unconnected.
Article 10A (see also article 10)
“For the determination of his civil rights and obligations or in any criminal charge against him a person shall be entitled to a fair trial and due process.”
Either this article is intended only for the ‘super rich’ and the ‘super powerful’ so that they can get away with murder (read about Shahzeb murder) or else there has been no evidence of this in action in the last five years of lovely democracy and constitutional rule. My suggestion is not to use the word 'fair' and 'trial' in the same sentence at this point in time.
Article 9
“No person shall be deprived of life or liberty save in accordance with law.”
In the last five years we have witnessed this article being violated in the most extreme manner. The Government has totally failed to protect the life and liberty of the people of Pakistan. Today about 100 dead Hazara Pakistanis are awaiting burial in the midst of a protest in Quetta, demanding the freedom to live a life without the fear of murder. Right across the spectrum, you see the failure of this Government to implement Article 9 even it the most rudimentary sense and not surprisingly people are totally fearful of leaving their homes.
I can go on and on about all the other articles of the Constitution, sorry I meant, articles written on a piece of paper, which the Government in the last five years have completely failed in implementing. Tax thieves and proven criminals with false degrees sitting in our parliament – in violation of explicit prohibition by the Constitution. The fact that Zardari is the President makes a joke of our Constitution. Dr Shahid Masood said today that the Constitution was a contract between the citizen and the state and the Government has totally failed to keep its part of the contract; so the question is when will we, the citizens of Pakistan, rise to change this dead document into a living one? (My friend “resurrected” may have an answer to this!)
Imran Khan has correctly pointed out that we have been consistently talking about these violations of the Constitution and in his view Mr Qadri’s march on to Islamabad, might give the Government to an excuse to join the VIP ranks of political martyrs. The Sharifs prefer to talk about the Constitution as long as there is no expectation that they and their family will have to follow it or anyone will ask awkward questions about their inability to comply with it when they were in power. I personally do not like Mr Qadri and I do not agree with his tempting mix of religion and politics but one thing is certain, I will always support his right to protest and rally peacefully anywhere in Pakistan.
So what do you want to do with this piece of paper? Where do you stand?