The Rediff Special/ The Economist

All according to the law

Running Pakistan is not getting any easier for Pervez Musharraf, the army general who now calls himself the country's chief executive. These are some of the problems landing on his desk. Shopkeepers went on strike this week after a trader died while in the custody of tax officers in Faisalabad. The shopkeepers were already upset over reports that a sales tax will be imposed in the budget next month. Mr Musharraf would like to pacify them but in this matter he is powerless: the IMF wants the tax as one of its conditions for a new loan. Other traders are reaching for their guns in North West Frontier province. They are furious over a plan to halve Pakistan's duty-free trade with Afghanistan, which is at present worth some 15 billion rupees ($ 290 million) a year.

The mullahs are festering too. In April, bowing to demands by human-rights groups, the government made it harder to abuse the procedure for lodging complaints under the country's blasphemy law, which is usually invoked against Christians and Hindus. The Islamists protested strongly, and this time Mr Musharraf acted: he cancelled the planned change in the law. He may regret his weakness. Extremist groups will be encouraged to make trouble, especially in the part of Kashmir held by India.

The general has had one bit of cheer. The supreme court has declined to chide him for overthrowing the elected government of Nawaz Sharif in October. In a ruling on May 12, the court accepted that a "constitutional deviation" had taken place in pursuit of rather noble objectives, such as economic reform and the bringing to book of corrupt politicians, bureaucrats and businessmen. The 12 judges based their ruling on the principle of salus populi ex supreme lex (the welfare of the people is the supreme law of any land), words perhaps more familiar to European lawyers than Pakistanis.

Still, the general was not quibbling. Presumably, he could suspend such rights as freedom of speech and freedom of association, if he could claim that the actions were in the interests of the people, and subject only to the court's power of judicial review. The court was not being inconsistent in its support for the general. The "doctrine of state necessity" had also been invoked to validate the coups of 1958 and 1977.

The court took the view that "there was no other way to remove a corrupt government except through the intervention of the armed forces". Mr Sharif's supporters claim that this contention prejudices Mr Sharif's pending appeal in the high court against a decision by an anti-terrorist court that has sentenced him to life imprisonment. He was convicted on a number of charges in connection with his sacking of Mr Musharraf as army chief, the action that triggered the coup. Mr Sharif's lawyers have pinned his defence on the argument that no charge of corruption has been proved against Mr Sharif, and as prime minister he was within his constitutional rights to sack Mr Musharraf.

Nevertheless, the uncertainty about the regime's legitimacy is over, at least in the eyes of the law. The junta has been empowered to deal effectively with the myriad problems facing Pakistan without having to worry about tiresome court battles. So there is no room for excuses any more. But in one respect the supreme court was not friendly. It directed Mr Musharraf to hold a general election by the end of 2002. This has not gone down well with the regime. Several of Mr Musharraf's fellow generals said the time allowed before an election was "too short" in view of their grand objectives.

Reproduced from the May 20-May 26 issue of The Economist, with the magazine's kind permission.

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