Panic and defiance over Memogate?

Was it the sign of panic gripping the government or an expression of defiance that former law and parliamentary affairs minister Babar Awan exhibited as he met the media following the Supreme Court order instituting a commission to investigate the Memogate scandal and fix responsibility? Most likely it was both. He spared no words, even stayed clear of innuendoes he would generally employ to lambaste the opponents, and hit out at the apex court with full force. As he had come straight after attending a crisis conclave Awan left no one in doubt that the government is going to defy the court's order. But at the same time his posturing clearly betrayed the panic that seems to have taken hold of the government. So to some who had thought that in the absence of a definite proof of President Zardari's endorsement of the memo affair the opposition's case was nothing more than a political stunt, are stunned by the ferocity of the government's reaction to the court's order. They ask: Is it that the people in the know of things know much more about the Memogate scam and how fatally consequential for the PPP leadership can possibly be the apex court's verdict? Of course, the calm with which the nine-member bench handled the case on its opening day should pre-empt any conjecture about the final outcome. But the PPP's legal eagle's brash and disconcertingly sharp reaction that he put on show before the media as a bevy of his party's heavyweights stood by him, foretells the possibility of yet another battlefront opening up between two principal organs of state - executive and judiciary. A PPP central executive member and notable barrister, Aitzaz Ahsan, on the other hand, was of the view that had the executive branch started investigation into the scandal on time, there would have been no need of judicial intervention. He also stated that there were several precedents in relation to formation of judicial commissions without issuance of a notice to the federation. There was, therefore, no need for the kind of drama Awan staged even if the government felt compelled to react; in fact, the Supreme Court as a venue for vindication of its standpoint on the Memogate scam is a better option than taking the case to a parliamentary committee where given the massive political discord permeating the country there is a next to nothing chance of political opposition conceding the government position. With seven out of the nine petitions filed in the Supreme Court by the PML (N) and Nawaz Sharif himself appearing before the bench what likelihood is there that a parliamentary committee can effectively deliver on this controversial memorandum? While one may cast a benign look at Awan's utterances the kind of reasoning he made to justify his outburst against the court's order is certainly unacceptable. Not only was his attitude contemptuous of the apex court's order and its proceedings, he didn't shrink from employing phraseology of an agent provocateur, which certainly casts the government's legal team in a rebellious mode. His charge that the Federation was not heard by the court holds no water, in that the Attorney General, a representative of the Federation, when asked to give the government's position had opted to remain silent and a leading legal light of his party, Aitzaz Ahsan, in his statement to the media in the premises of the court has belied his assertion. Awan, however, has taken exception to the court's order of instituting a one-man commission, arguing only the Executive has this right, as if this was the first-ever commission being set up by a court. His objection that Husain Haqqani has been barred from travelling abroad and thus placed on the ECL unheard by the court is no less frivolous given that custodial detention is very much a lawful practice. That Tariq Khosa would head the commission, which to Awan is a conspiratorial move, is yet another untenable position, because even if the former is the brother of a sitting judge of the apex court, the said judge is not on the bench that is hearing the Memogate scandal case. But where the PPP's legal brain seriously erred was his patently malicious assertion that "this time the PML (N) leaders have chosen strong shoulders to play their game, which I call the first act of Bangladesh Model". Was he trying to suggest that the military is behind Nawaz Sharif's petition and would like to take over as was the case some years back in Bangladesh where an interim government came into being in the wake of perennial political chaos? And no less painful was his claim that it is the Punjab, read the people of Punjab, who sent home the body bags of three Sindhi prime ministers while 'the coffin for the fourth is being prepared'. Apparently, being a silent witness of four-hour long court proceedings, where words like Watergate and Articles 5 and 6 were occasionally uttered, it appears that Awan lost his nerve, and in the process triggered a fear psychosis all through the government quarters. Perhaps a less frightful reaction could have been him standing up in the court where he could have argued that the government's hands are absolutely clean and it would face the charges in the court. If Awan's press conference is a prelude to the government's decision to defy the Supreme Court then indeed we are in for more interesting times next year. Copyright Business Recorder, 2011