Defending the un-defendable

Christian Wulff, the president of Germany, resigned within days of allegations being levelled against him about availing some favours (including a bank loan on favourable terms) while he served as the governor of the state of Lower Saxony much before becoming the president of Germany.
No legal complaint over these allegations was lodged but the state prosecutors wanted his immunity lifted which Chancellor Angela Merkel did not want, but a morally conscious president stepped aside to let those allegations be settled without any bias being caused by his status as the president of Germany.
That's what a 'state officeholder' does, whether or not he enjoys immunity, because going for a trail after giving up the office he holds proves to the world the integrity and strength of character of that individual. What an absolutely un-Pakistani political mindset! Isn't it?
'Democrats' like PM Gilani feel the other way but in doing so they are backed by able (?) legal advisors like Babar Awan, and now Aitzaz Ahsan, and so opt for being defended, irrespective of the legality or otherwise of their stand. Should the lawyers - the defenders of justice - be doing that?
According a press report, in the documents he filed with the Election Commission for election to the next Senate, Babar Awan dropped the PhD prefix from his name. If this report is correct, in the documents he had filed for contesting the 2008 parliamentary elections, did he mistakenly declare himself a PhD degree holder?
He went on using that prefix with his name until now, and after expressing the views that he did about the judiciary, his license to practice law too was suspended. Yet, he is among the Senators who have been elected unopposed. Some democracy, isn't it? But this led to a major change - Aitzaz Ahsan is now defending the PM.
In a May 24, 2010 TV talk show, Aitzaz Ahsan had labelled the PM's refusal to write to the Swiss authorities to reopen the $60 million graft cases against President Asif Ali Zardari as "defiance" of the judiciary, but now that he is defending the PM, he doesn't find this act defiant of the judiciary.
Now Aitzaz Ahsan is convinced that by "defying" (his earlier stance) the Supreme Court order in the above case, the PM did not commit contempt of court. Also, that even if the PM is convicted of this crime he can continue to act as the PM until unseated by the parliament and the Election Commission.
According to him, the Supreme Court can't unseat the PM; all it can do is ask the speaker of the National Assembly to unseat the PM. Thereafter, the PM would appeal against his conviction. If that appeal is set aside, the Supreme Court could again advise the speaker of the National Assembly to unseat the PM.
The National Assembly speaker can take upto 30 days to decide the matter and may then recommend to the Election Commission to unseat the PM. The Election Commission will have another three months to decide the matter. Then there could be an appeal against the verdict of the Election Commission.
Thus, the PM could hold his office for several months in spite of his conviction. Perhaps, what he is implying by this explanation is that, in the Pakistani democracy, courts can't decide that a state officeholder has committed an illegality; only the parliament and the Election Commission can do so.
The first sign of the fact that Aitzaz Ahsan had been forgiven for the views he had expressed earlier in this context, was his being assigned the job of defending the PM (and indirectly the president), and the second sign is his being elected "unopposed" to the next Senate. Isn't that some success?
The reversal in Aitzaz Ahsan's thinking surprised many lawyers because his support for the PM's holding onto his office in spite of a possible conviction (and that too by the highest court of the country) belies not just his thinking, but amounts to defying the writ of the Supreme Court.
That's not all; it also amounts to saying that state officeholders are beyond the reach of the law; once elected to the parliament, they become infallible ie beyond accountability even by courts of law, let alone the people. Unwittingly (?), he is helping the cause of making democracy seem a monstrosity.
In this chaos, it is no surprise that US Senators - the self-proclaimed lawgivers to the world - are deciding the number of parts in which Pakistan be divided. The regime in Pakistan must be adored for this "success" that reflects on the quality of its focus - politicking, not cementing cohesion and securing national interests.
In the last five decades of Pakistan's 64-year history, only a minority of its politicians displayed concern for upholding moral values, justice and equality, and some top names in the lawyer community encouraged this slide rather than arrest it; introspection to mend their ways rarely bothered them.
Often, the Attorney Generals tended to defend the regimes they served, rather than uphold the cause of justice. According to media reports in the cases against the state, in the Supreme Court's view, the present Attorney General too has sometimes not been as supportive of the judicial process as he ought to be.
In the NRO case too, the Attorney General believes that "usually there is no need of witnesses if the case is of a civil nature", and the Supreme Court order requiring him to act as the prosecutor in the contempt proceedings against the PM was not applicable, though he would abide by the court's direction in this context.
As the chief lawyer of the state, morally he should be committed to fair dispensation of justice, and be ready to assist every effort in that regard. But, apparently, he holds a different view on the subject, although Pakistan's single biggest flaw is lack of respect for law and the inequities it breeds - the mother of all evils.
If lawyers make defending their client the sole objective irrespective of who, and what act of his or her they are defending, they do a disservice to the cause of dispensing justice fairly; that's what we are seeing now. All this is eroding confidence in the state, and the dissent in Balochistan portrays just that. Still, Pakistanis place their legal community on a high pedestal. But this community must do its job fairly and in a committed fashion. Every evil can be rooted out but only if this community takes its obligations seriously.