The Supreme Court issued a contempt notice to MQM Chief Altaf Hussain last week, asking him to appear in person to explain his unrestrained banter against the apex court order regarding the delimitation of constituencies and verification of voters in Karachi as well as the honourable judges, who had passed that order.
Issuing the contempt order, the court observed: “Prima facie, we are of the opinion that the language used is not only contemptuous, but that…....(Altaf Hussain’s speech)…....is tantamount to interference with and obstruction of the process of the court by advancing threats to the judges of the Supreme Court and it also tended to bring the judges into hatred, ridicule and contempt.” While the court will decide whether he committed contempt or not, the MQM Chief’s assertion that delimitation of constituencies and voter-verification as ordered by the Supreme Court amounted to contempt of the public mandate needs closer scrutiny. It feeds into the misleading judiciary versus democracy debate.
To begin with, verification of voters for the compilation of credible electoral lists and delimitation of constituencies by the Election Commission of Pakistan in consultation with political parties are steps that ensure respect for public mandate more than anything else. Even the MQM says that these steps should be taken. However, the party says that they should be taken after the next census and all over Pakistan, rather than just in Karachi. It doesn’t seem to matter that the census was due in 2008 and the government has failed to conduct it. It doesn’t seem to matter that the case before the court concerned Karachi and it was brought before the court by political parties. Besides, the MQM didn’t bother to file for a review of the order. It chose instead to target the judges who’d issued the order and joined the chorus about the honourable judges, overstepping their constitutional role that is so fashionable in certain circles these days.
It is the favourite mantra for the so-called champions of democracy, who are quick to chant it every time the Supreme Court passes an order that upsets the undemocratic and unconstitutional games our power-players play behind the façade of democracy. According to the deliberately simplistic standpoint of PPP and its partners, and a host of anchorpersons and analysts, who seem only too happy to go along with it, it all boils down to the sanctity of public mandate.
According to their logic, the elected representatives have the public mandate and that makes them sacred. These holy cows enjoying the public mandate should be allowed to do as they please until the next elections. If there are black sheep among them, the public would hold them accountable and not give them the sacred mandate. While these proprietors of public mandate decide about our life and death, everyone else should go to sleep.
Are they really so naïve, these frontline defenders of democracy? Does democracy boil down to this? Have they ever attempted to place the concept of public mandate, and those supposedly enjoying it, under the same nit-picking microscope that they focus on the honourable judges at the drop of a hat? Why are they so intent upon giving the elected representatives within a constitutional democratic framework the kind of power one finds in only monarchies and dictatorships? They pretend as if democracy is a ritual that takes place once every five years and not a process. They pretend that it is not a system that is supposed to function every day within the constitutional framework that is holier than all the holy cows put together. They’d like to take us back to a time when the judiciary paid homage to them and adjusted its interpretation of the constitution to suit them.
Let’s take a look at the holy cows. Last week, we discovered that most of them didn’t pay any taxes or paid too little. Earlier, many of them enjoying the sacred public mandate were exposed as forgers and fraudsters for submitting fake degrees to the Election Commission to participate in elections. Only recently, more turned out to be dual nationals, who illegally contested elections. We know that almost half of the voters on electoral lists used in the last elections were bogus. Anyone familiar with electoral politics in the country knows about the multiple antics of pre-poll, polling-day and post-poll rigging that goes on as a routine, the use of money and violence that goes on in broad daylight. Add the distorted representation that comes with first-past-the-post elections, and one gets a clearer idea about the true worth of this public mandate that all and sundry are not supposed to question.
This is not to suggest that the democracy project should be disbanded because it has these glaring gaps. But no one should be allowed to hide behind this so-called public mandate to maintain an anti-people status quo and malign the Supreme Court when it intervenes to bring the system within the confines of the constitution and correct the flaws that are a hindrance to democratic governance.
Should the Supreme Court abdicate its responsibility of holding those in power accountable and let the farce go on? Should it close its eyes to bogus votes,  corruption, cronyism, illegal appointments, fake degrees, dual national parliamentarians and so many other unconstitutional doings of those in power and go to sleep? Should it interpret the constitution in the public interest or for the petty interests of those abusing an already suspect public mandate?

The writer is a freelance columnist. Email: hazirjalees@hotmail.com