The biggest scandal in Pakistan the Axact drama, where the signatures of American Senator John Kerry and politician Mrs. Clinton, were copied on fake degrees and letters by a company based in Karachi, was made possible due to the broken Justice system of Pakistan. With so many checks available in Pakistan, one is surprised to see Axact operate in this dubious business for so long but on closer inspection, it is clear that organisations like the FIA, SECP, HEC, etc have all been stopped from investigating the Axact business through ‘Stay Orders’ issued by judges of different courts.
The ‘Stay Order’ is a tool used by the judiciary to stop investigation and even to deny justice. The stay order has been missused in Pakistan by corrupt and incompetent Government employees and ministers and is also the root cause of all social problems. Where Axact has used the stay order to stop investigation for many years it has also been used by the corrupt workers of Pakistan Steel Mills (PSM) to stop the sale of the company and to stop the reduction of staff in the overburden company.
A good example of how the stay order destroys justice would be the de-seating and re-seating of Khwaja Saad Rafique, Railway Minister of Pakistan. When a Judicial commission of ECP said that the election bags of the 7 polling stations, from where Khwaja Saad Rafique won, contained rubbish rather than votes and ordered his de-seating, the SC’ three member bench, headed by Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali, not only gave a ‘stay order’ against the de-seating, but also prolonged the investigation by 4 weeks in a case which had all records ready to be judged.
We the citizens of Pakistan have witnessed such atrocities committed by the judiciary against social justice and the justice system in Pakistan for many decades, but now the Axact scandal has highlighted these atrocities to the entire world. Where once the world organisations were awarding our ex-CJ, now they must be rethinking their earlier awards, they should pressurise the government to reform the incompetent and corrupt judiciary to help provide justice to everyone in Pakistan.
ENGR. ZEESHAN BASEER KHAN,
Peshawar, June 24.