Allegations of corruption in the lower judiciary, currently gracing the headlines, are hardly the only headaches facing the legal fraternity as it scrambles to re-establish its legitimacy. The antics of many of its foot soldiers - practicing lawyers and bar association representatives - as they often go about rampaging through streets and government offices, vandalising public property and roughing up citizens, government servants and even sitting judges, has become a very big issue that will now have to be settled once and for all.
Yet, while there’s no excuse for anybody breaking any law at all, there’s something to be said when lawyers themselves take the law into their own hands, especially in the way that they’ve got used to in this country. They are, after all, the very instrument of justice delivery whenever and wherever rights are trampled upon. And for them to lower themselves to thuggish gangs, bullying and injuring people, and also causing destruction of public and private property, is simply unacceptable and should invite the full force of the law.
This behaviour was one of the unintended consequences of the so-called lawyers’ movement of 2007-08 and the fact that it has been tolerated for so long, by the judiciary and law enforcement agencies alike, simply beggars belief. It is, at the end of the day, the sitting government’s responsibility to ensure that the law is not made a joke out of; especially in this way, repeatedly, and that too by custodians of the law themselves. Therefore, now that unruly lawyers have crossed far too many lines to even be allowed an old-fashioned hearing, it is very seriously hoped that the government will finally put its foot down and set a lasting precedent, to quote from the legal fraternity’s own jargon.
At stake are not just routine matters like rule of law and writ of state, but the legitimacy of one of the most essential pillars of state. And while the judiciary is guilty of letting this self-inflicted wound compromise its integrity, the government is equally at fault for sitting on the fence and watching this happen. At this point, the judiciary is perhaps the last thing keeping this society from slipping into downright anarchy. The time and energy of members of this noble profession are far better spent trying to do something about the millions of cases of backlog that delay as well as deny justice to so many Pakistanis. This is indeed a moment of reckoning for the legal fraternity.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2021
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