The Terrorist, the Killer and the Prostitute
There is a widely held misconception across the globe in general, and in Pakistan in particular, that in modern sovereign state system the judiciary is the most powerful and influential institution in a state. This is false. Political history of modern man explicitly tells us that the courts in all societies have been vulnerable and less powerful institution as compared to law making and law enforcing institutions. It needs no rocket science to understand this reality, for instance: a parliament/congress formulates laws and the executive is to enforce them, it is beyond any doubt that the judiciary supervises the law, whether it is being implemented correctly or not, but the judiciary itself has no hard/material power to enforce the law rather it directs the executive for its rightimplementation. (Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court has rightly remarked “Under the Constitution, judges have power to say whatthe law is, not what it should be.”)
In Pakistan innocent people blame the judiciary for all the mess, people argue, that it does not provide them justice; they also argue that if someone has committed the crime in front of them even then the court respectfully release the accused, this is simplyinjustice. Here lies the point, however, we need to understand that the courts do not directly investigate the case rather it’s the job of police to probe into the matters—if the police do not provide sufficient and convincible evidence, the court has no other option except to release the accused. Similarly, people argue, courts must punish criminals severely and hardly; once again its not the court’s job to independently determine the punishments rather our legislatures do define the amount of punishment, in general.
The problem lies in law making and in law enforcing processes—but we generally think all this mess is created by the judiciary.
It is interesting to note that the world uses social media to change the world but unfortunately most Pakistanis use Facebook, Twitter and many others social sites only to post selfies—and for sharing stupid jokes and videos clips.
There are, however, a few who use these forums for productive and informative purposes. Some days ago many intellectuals were discussing Gullu Butt, Sulat Mirza and Ayyan Ali on social media. All three of them are very interesting characters; Gullu Butt is a hero for many— for all those who were/are behind him, he claimed to be Humanitarian, who work for the welfare of the people but so many Pakistanis think he is a terrorist who spreads terror through his harmful ways. Sulat Mirza claimed to be a political worker of Sindh’s second largest political party, he killed many people for the party—for the leadership of his party— he confessed. But that very political party disowned him and termed him as a KILLER who must be hanged to death. Ayyan Ali, a beautiful Pakistani model, was arrested for money laundering— backed by a large empire of business—many Pakistanis think that she is a high-class prostitute. (Do remember the fact that the Custom inspector who arrested Ayyan has been killed.)
Now the question is are they (Gullu Butt, Sulat Mirza and Ayyan Ali) criminals? Yes, they are. But—in law we usually do not use BUTS. So let the issue be seen now through the prism of politics.
We get confused in these issues because of lack of understanding of law and its scope. Law’s only objective is to protect the societal goals not to determine them. Law is, therefore, an instrument not a source—to determine societal goals.
These are poor Pakistanis who have been being used or misused by our politicians and rulers since long to fulfil their vested interests. We are not interested in the debate that we are bitterly criticizing Ayyan because she is a woman rather our intention is to question this dirty system in which who exploit such “morons and zombies” are respected and honored but these poor souls are greatly humiliated and butchered for being socially, morally, and legally corrupt.
We need to think beyond the narrowscope of law to understand this dirty politics. We need to question and bring them in front of public who uses such poor people for their dirty objectives.
We have to come up to question these giants and drag them in courts; we also need to think about the socio-economic construction of evidence so that these infamous political leaders may be questioned in courts. (This is however another debate for another time)
We have branded them as the Terrorist, the Killer and the Prostitute but we have not yet questioned those genetically engineered hypocrites who make them so—and exploit them.
