Pakistan it appears may be adopted by me as my most favorite place on earth. It has all the desire to be an upstanding part of the international community, and yet a segment of it wants to turn back the clock 1300 years.
Musharraf has learned the lessons of his counterpart President Bush well, using the powers of the office to expand and maintain power despite the legalities that may stand in the way. Too bad for the principle of law that Pakistan does not have the precedent to curb such thinking and seemingly abuses in power.
Too bad for the American Principle of Checks and Balances that impeachment was used as a political tool for partisan gains, thus giving Bush immunity from actions he had taken that contradict the oath of office that he swore to the God he seemingly follows.
What we also see is the failure of the Pakistani Supreme Court to understand the circumstances they preside upon and the tenuous stance that Pakistan finds itself. For instead of the ability to show that they are a check upon the Presidency of Pakistan the Supreme Court Justices have allowed themselves to be relegated to a rubber stamp.
These same circumstances were present when our own Supreme Court in 1937. Conservative Activist Judges had ruled not on the law but through their own ideology, setting a precedent for their liberal brethren 70 years later, but I digress. This prompted FDR who was watching his policies that would make peoples lives better be struck d0wn by the courts, to declare that he would propose a Court Packing Bill, which would increase the size of the Supreme Court.
Were it to pass, FDR would be able to pick new members that would be sympathetic to his cause, and get his legislature passed, but at the cost of the soul of the Supreme Court. For if any President had problems with the High Court striking down legislature, expanding the court would be seen as a possible avenue of circumvention.
This moment was realized by Justice Owen J. Roberts, and a critical decision had to be made. Allow some of these new legislature that was questionably Constitutional, preserving the third branch of government in the long run. Or deny the new legislature and allow the Supreme Court to be expanded as the Executive Branch saw fit. Parts of FDR’s legislation would be past prompting the press to say, “A switch in time; Saved nine.”
It was the inability of Pakistan’s Supreme Court to see this critical moment in the context of the larger picture that has ultimately failed the people it supposedly serves. For while the previous decisions may have been technically circumventing the law allowing Musharraf to remain President, what has occurred is much more dangerous.
Not to be abused by Musharraf who after another 5 years of ruling Pakistan may be sick of the place, but by those who come after. Especially if those who come after Musharraf are much more radical in their desire to obtain power, and the extension of their ideology.
I think it was President Lincoln who said, “Success has many Fathers, While failure is an Orphan.” In most cases this is true, but now we always need a scapegoat in order to place blame on a tangible target. The World has the US to blame for the terrible things that occur. Americans have the Bush Administration, while conservatives have the media.
For now this crisis of Pakistan may be placed on Musharraf because that is the only Pakistani we know. History should place the blame on those who deserve it, the Pakistani Supreme Court. Those men who were so determined to show it had power, that has now set a precedent that its court may be packed should a decision not be liked. Sorry Pakistan, No Switch in Time.
