Hardly a day passes without some lawyer or a group of lawyers getting media attention for all the wrong reasons. The storming of the Punjab Institute of Cardiology by hundreds of lawyers in Lahore, has remained etched on the national psyche. When the lawyers involved in the hospital’s storming were arrested, the unreserved support for them from the bar councils across the country raised questions about the state of legal institutions in the country.

Only recently a group of lawyers stormed the Islamabad High Court, restricting Chief Justice Athar Minallah to his office and vandalising the premises to protest demolition of their chambers by the CDA. Following the administration‘s action against the rampaging lawyers, bar associations in several cities again affirmed their support for the incarcerated lawyers. Even more recently, a group of lawyers in Mirpur allegedly forced a judge into giving the verdict they wanted in a blasphemy case.

While it is always dangerous to jump to conclusions based on small sample characteristics, the disturbing frequency with which the lawyers take the law into their own hands may well point at something systematically problematic with the judiciary’s functioning. The lawyers’ disdain for the very law and due process that they are supposed to uphold may well be just the tip of the iceberg.

While frenzied lawyers running amok readily catch media attention, some other shenanigans of some members of the legal fraternity may not be as sensational. The legal fraternity has a vested interest in stalling the judicial process because prolonged proceedings and delayed judgements in civil and criminal cases ensure a steady income stream. While there is a widespread perception that a large number of innocent people are incarcerated in Pakistani jails because of a lack of legal help, not a few guilty persons take the better of the courts of law with the help of lawyers who can outsmart the course of law by twisting the law to their advantage.

It is tempting to fault the lawyers for their conduct, but there is a systematic pattern to flouting the law with impunity. The impunity needs to be viewed in a broader perspective in Pakistan. Why do the lawyers have to resort to violence every time they feel they have been wronged? After all, they claim to fight for the legal rights. No one would like, in principle at least, to defend the guilty. Considering so many people pay for the lawyers’ services for the adjudication of their cases, why do the lawyers not follow the example?

The impunity lawyers enjoy does not exist in isolation. It symbolises the relationship between different sectors of the state, as well as between the state and society. The impunity, with which the Constitution was abrogated time and again, set the unfortunate example of acting with impunity. In fact, two military dictators – Generals Pervez Musharraf and Zia ul Haq – are on record having said that the constitution is just a piece of paper.

Enforced disappearances, killing of people from religious minorities, land-grab rackets and arm-twisting of media outlets are natural consequences of the impunity.

The relevant question here is why do lawyers act in ways that make a mockery of due process? The unconscionable attitude of the lawyers may be explained in terms of mob psychology. Though understanding group behaviour is challenging, understanding mob psychology is even more complicated. The Greek dramatist, Euripides, suggested that emotional mobs are much like children, subject to similar same tantrums and fits of fury. Gustave LeBon has said that in a crowd the individual conscious personality disappears and is replaced by a collective mind that is credulous, impulsive, emotional, without moral responsibility, less intelligent than individuals, and blindly obedient to charismatic leaders who hypnotise and mobilise a crowd into action.

However, the recent understanding sees the charged mob as a group of individuals who may be more rational than previously believed. Clark McPhail has suggested that it is not that individuals lose their cognitive control in crowds; the crowd behaviour is basically a rational attempt to accomplish or prevent some sort of social change. Paul Gilje points out that the mobs are often very selective in their choice of victims and targets which does not support the notion of mindless violence. Some experts have also suggested specific psychological factors that lower the prohibitions against violent behaviour and facilitate the individual‘s participation in the mob violence, such as power, justification, suggestibility and stimulation.

When lawyers take the law into their own hands, and the legal fraternity supports them, there may be little gainsaying the fact that this attitude smacks of arrogant impunity. The demolition of the lawyers’ chambers provided a trigger. Few people can be expected to behave normally when their source of livelihood is threatened. The question is why do the lawyers have this sense of entitlement to break the law without any fear of consequences? The answer is clearly too complicated to be covered in this piece and requires more rigorous analysis. Another equally important question is, what could be the consequences of such impunity for a community that in principle is there to uphold the rule of law?

Breaking the law with impunity has far-reaching consequences, including the potential to irreparably damage the social fabric of the society. The absence of rule of law leads to all types of problems, including violent conflicts and repression and gross violations of human rights. Impunity, whether enjoyed by some individuals or groups, is often a major obstacle to upholding the rule of law.

A viral video showing a group of lawyers thrashing a judge of a banking court notwithstanding, little is known about the fate of the lawyers flouting the law. The general public is also not aware of the progress in the case of the lawyers who stormed the PIC. Long-drawn out official inquiries often fail to produce any result and the culprits go scot-free.

When some individuals or groups are allowed to act illegally with impunity, the legal and judicial systems are virtually suspended, and the concepts of innocence and guilt lose their meaning. The victims of violence or the victims’ relatives at the PIC may be afraid to take legal action against the lawyers because it is too costly a proposition. Not many people can afford to file a case against the lawyers.

The impunity provides a context which encourages and facilitates human rights violations. Individuals violate laws because they do not expect to be held accountable. If history is any indicator, in Pakistan’s context, such an expectation may be primarily grounded in reality.

The primary responsible for breaking the vicious circle of flouting the law with impunity lies with the state. When impunity for breaking the laws is tolerated, it sounds the death-knell for the democratic values, the rule of law and civilian supremacy. However, citizens also carry a major share of responsibility. Groups of lawyers must stand against the impunity of their fellow lawyers where the latter go wrong primarily because the expected support of the legal fraternity makes acting with impunity possible in the first place.

The writer is an    Assistant Professor in the Department of Economics at COMSATS    University Islamabad, Lahore Campus