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Conviction of Musharraf may lead

to genuine democracy in Pakistan

With the conviction on the
charges of treason leading
to death sentence to Pervez
Musharraf, the ideology of
necessity being invoked for
the past 56 years to legitimise
successive military coups in
Pakistan against civilian regimes
is now finally buried. The special
court’s decision on December 17
has not only stunned the all-
powerful military establishment,
but it also exposes the dirty role
of the armed forces or popularly
called establishment in the name
of Islam, reports gopal misra

he Pakistan Army’s sharp re- Institute of Legislative Development and when the then chief justice, Muhammed
action against the judicial ver- Transparency, said in Islamabad. “It will Munir, validated the Governor general,
dict awarding death sentence have a deterrent value.” Hassan Nissar, Ghulam Mohammed, dismissing the
to a former military dictator, a noted journalist and commentator of Sind provincial assembly. On 24 October
T Pervez Musharraf, shows the Pakistan, known as a supporter of Imran 1954 the Governor-General of Pakistan,
tradition power centre in the country, Khan, has refused to make any observa- Ghulam Mohammad, had dissolved the
GHQ, is unable to find a way to retain tion on this issue. Constituent Assembly on October 24,
its supremacy in the power game of the Bhutto’s son Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, 1954, and appointed a new Council of
country’s murky politics. With Prime whose mother was assassinated by some Ministers on the grounds that the exist-
Minister Imran Khan’s inability to man- secret service agents during the Mushr- ing one no longer represented the peo-
age the judicial verdict in favour of the raf years, tweeted: “Democracy is the best ple of Pakistan. However, most of the
dictator who had sacked a civilian prime revenge”. people aware of the Pakistani politics
minister, GHQ and its commanders have Retired general Talat Masood, now a believe that it was an attempt to stop the
only one choice that to invoke the doc- security analyst, called the court’s deci- approval of the new constitution.
trine of necessity. sion “extraordinary” and “bold”. The then president of the Constituent
Musharraf had dismissed the then Assembly, Maulvi Tamizuddin, appealed
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in a blood- The ideology questioned to the Chief Court of Sind at Karachi to
less coup in 1999. He had ruled Pakistan The successive coups in Pakistan could restrain the new Council of Ministers
from 1999 to 2008. The initial reaction be justified on the theory that of neces- from implementing the dissolution and
was the deterrent impact on the armed sity for the public good. The medieval po- to determine the validity of the appoint-
forces, if they again try to grab power litical thinker and jurist, Henry de Barc- ment of the new Council under Section
by sacking civilian government. Ahmed ton had propounded this theory, which 223-A of the constitution.The Chief Court
Bilal Mehboob, president of the Pakistan was first used in Pakistan in mid fifties, of Sind ruled in favour of Tamizuddin

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