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But today something quite extraordinary is happening in Pakistan. The public institutions that were once thought weak and powerless are now asserting their institutional authority and have joined with citizens in the long march toward democracy.
Though it is far too soon to know whether democracy will ever take root in Pakistan, there are encouraging signs on the horizon. Citizens have freed themselves from the grip of authoritarianism and now live under a civilian president, foreign aid to the nation is targeted increasingly toward social and economic development instead of almost exclusively to the military, the machinery of government operates progressively more efficiently and openly, and the political culture has steadily become more inviting of pluralism and civic participation. These developments augur well for the future of democracy in Pakistan.
But what augurs perhaps most promising for democracy in Pakistan is the courage that judges on the Pakistani Supreme Court have shown in recent months. These Pakistani patriots have risked the institutional capital of the court as well as their own personal safety by bravely declaring, in both word and deed, that a new day of justice has dawned in Pakistan.
The Supreme Court’s message to the people of Pakistan has been unmistakable: No longer may politicians take for granted the sacred public trust that citizens confer upon them and no longer will Supreme Court judges turn a blind eye to the prevailing culture of political corruption in Pakistan.
Just last week, the Supreme Court issued a bold judgment that lays bare just how seriously the judges are taking their new self-imposed responsibilities as champions of democracy. In a short and declarative ruling, the Supreme Court lifted an amnesty that had for too long shielded politicians from criminal charges of wrongdoing and corruption. Politicians, affirmed the court, are henceforth fair game for prosecution and cannot expect to engage in graft and other fraudulent acts without consequence. Enough is enough, suggested the court, politicians are not above the law. They must play by the rules just like everyone else.
This is an event of high moment in the democratic development of Pakistan. The Supreme Court’s ruling would have been unthinkable as recently as a few months ago, when it was still a dutiful appendage of the autocratic administration that governed Pakistan for most of the decade.
Indeed, fewer than two years ago, Pakistanis were living under a repressive regime, which elevated the rule of man over the rule of law and paid little attention to the integrity of the nation’s democratic institutions. But much has changed for the better in that short span, and much of that change is attributable to the Supreme Court’s growing willingness to stand up for the rule of law.
Today, as public institutions rise alongside citizens in defense of democracy and good government, Pakistan’s Supreme Court judges are standing tall as the embankment against what remains an overwhelming tide of political corruption that threatens to forever stall Pakistan’s progress toward democracy.
With continued pressure on the political class in Pakistan, the Supreme Court can serve as the catalyst for finally establishing a political culture of democratic norms and a constitutional culture of the rule of law. No other institution can be as constructive to the project of fashioning Pakistan into a liberal democracy – which is precisely what its citizens hope, both for themselves and their posterity, their nation ultimately becomes.
Democracy does not come easy. It requires patience and persistence, and the courage and self-assurance to know that the mission is not only right but also righteous. That is how the judges of the Supreme Court of Pakistan must continue to discharge their lofty twin duties to cultivate democracy and to preserve the integrity of democratic institutions.
For if democracy one day takes root in Pakistan, it will have been because of the fight that Pakistan’s patriots are waging today to entrench the rule of law above the rule of man.
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(Richard Albert is an assistant professor at Boston College Law School, where he specializes in constitutional law and democratic theory. ©Copyright Richard Albert.)
