On a heap of garbage

Not too long ago, I participated in an interesting conversation about the legal profession on the sideline of a conference in Lahore. At one point, a prominent lawyer looked me in the eye and wondered if I had any idea about the fee that he charged from his clients. And that too by the hour.

I responded by saying, calmly, that I was aware of the high cost of our top lawyers and also knew about the salaries and perks of the judges of superior courts. But do they realise that with all their wealth and power, they are actually sitting on a heap of garbage?

This may have been a bit offensive and uncalled for. However, what I had in mind was the state of the entire system and the manner in which it dealt with the common people unfortunate enough to fall into the law’s trap. Actually, when I think of justice, I think of the city courts that I have visited a number of times. Then, there are stories about what happens in not just the lower courts.

In fact, this can be said about the higher echelons of all our government departments and public institutions. What they preside over, in their grand offices and privileged lives, is a landscape of misery and injustice. A glimpse of the lower depths of our society is bound to leave you very depressed.

Now, why do I have to recall that encounter with a top lawyer at this time when historic events relating to a hastily adopted constitutional amendment and a supremely consequential change of guard at the Supreme Court of Pakistan have dominated the media and the attention of all concerned citizens?

One reason is that I am unable to fully decode the many mysteries that are embedded in these developments that have dire implications for ongoing political conflicts. Emotions have overtaken our capacity to objectively assess the situation. When the judges themselves get so divided, where does one go for the resolution of any contentious issue of national importance?

Another reason for this digression is the feeling that the nation’s overwhelming preoccupation with constitutional, political and juridical affairs has left a lot of issues unattended. For instance, we are talking about the constitution and the judges without much reference to the human dimension of what justice is all about.

Talking about our leading lawyers and judges of the superior courts, I must admit that so many of them, though guilty of making too much money, are among the brightest and smartest people in this country. No other class in the country is likely to have an equal or better intellectual competence than that of the cream of our judiciary and the legal profession. Still, I would like to stand by my charge that they are sitting on a heap of garbage. It may even be argued that they are happy to not genuinely try to change the system.

What the reality looks like was portrayed by Raza Rabbani, himself a lawyer and former chairman of the Senate. He resorted to fiction to tell the truth about the misery of ordinary people. One story in his ‘Invisible People’ is about a mother whose son was arrested for stealing a bicycle and even after desperate attempts, she fails to get her son released by the police.

The title of the story is ‘Imprisoned Law’. This woman comes to the city courts almost every day and watches people coming in big cars and leaving making victory signs. She is told that only a judge can help her and so, having lost her mind, she accosts people with this one question: “Are you a judge, are you a judge?”

Another little intervention: a study of the civil and criminal justice system in Pakistan that I saw on the net cited the Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development (PILDAT) – and this was more than two years ago – to report that the conviction rate in Pakistan is about nine per cent. In India, it is more than 37 per cent. In the United States, it is 85 per cent and in England, it is 90 per cent.

Finally, I have a legitimate peg to talk about the state of law in Pakistan. On Wednesday, the World Justice Project (WJS) released its seventh Rule of Law Index for 2024 in Washington. Pakistan ranks 129 among 142 countries. There may be some consolation in the fact that Pakistan was 130 in last year’s index.

Not unexpectedly, the WJP has noted that for the seventh year, rule of law declined globally. This rule of law recession is characterised by executive overreach, curtailing of human rights and justice systems that are failing to meet people’s needs. So, like in many other countries, the people of Pakistan are also paying the price of a flawed justice system.

We may not be surprised to learn that Pakistan is at 129 out of 142 countries in this index. We should have become accustomed to being near the end of every list. But it would be different, I believe, if the intellectual and professional qualities of top lawyers and judges of superior courts of various countries are compared. We should fare better in that respect.

Anyhow, we lag in the WJP index also among South Asian countries, being fifth with only Afghanistan behind us. Nepal is ahead in the region at 69, followed by Sri Lanka at 75. India is at 79 and Bangladesh is two steps above us at 127. There is, apparently, no measure of how the poor and the underprivileged suffer at the hands of the justice system of a country. All you need to do to understand this is to make a visit to the lower courts and try to read faces.

Meanwhile, there is the drama of the division with the Supreme Court to keep you enthralled. Perhaps, Netflix would be interested in doing a thriller on how a chief justice is appointed in Pakistan.

The writer is a senior journalist. He can be reached at: ghazi_salahuddin@hotmail.com