- Pakistan Army receives the news with pain & anguish
New Delhi. 17 December 2019. Something new has happened in Pakistan. The judges have suddenly become national heroes for having kept the supremacy of the constitution and giving former dictator turned President Parvez Musharraf a death sentence. For the first time in the history of the nation a President has been sentenced for subverting constitution and muzzling the judicial voice.
A three-member special court in Islamabad today convicted Musharraf of violating the constitution by unlawfully declaring emergency rule while he was in power, in a case that had been pending since 2013. Musharraf who has been living in Dubai for the last three years has the option to appeal the verdict.
Five charges, including three counts of subverting, suspending and changing the country’s constitution, firing Pakistan’s chief justice, and imposing emergency rule have been put on Musharraf who was a dictator who ruled Pakistan for 9 years after seizing power in a bloodless coup in 1999 post Indo-Pak Kargil conflict.
Under Pakistan’s constitution, high treason is a crime that carries the death penalty or life imprisonment.The special court ruled on the death sentence by a two to one majority, with one of the three judges not backing the death sentence but agreeing on a conviction.
The Pakistan Army stand steadfastly next to its former Chief and Supreme Commander. In a statement DG ISPR says a due legal process seems to have been ignored including constitution of special court, denial of fundamental right of self defence, undertaking individual specific proceedings and concluding the case in haste.
It may be recalled that Musharraf went into exile in 2008, returning to Pakistan in 2013 with the aim of running in the country’s national elections. But his ambition had to take a backseat as he got entangled into legal hassles which were repercussions of his time in power. Musharraf declared a state of emergency, suspended Pakistan’s constitution, replaced the chief judge and blacked out independent TV outlets.
But the Army says that a man who was the ex-Army Chief, Chairman Joint Chief of Staff Committee and President of Pakistan, who has served the country for over forty years , fought wars fr the defence of the country can never be a traitor. Well the road seems bumpy for the Pakistani judiciary.
