Fraud, perjury and brazen shamelessness

By Ikram Sehgal

To avoid severe action by the Supreme Court (SC), MNA Jamshed Dasti resigned posthaste when his university degree was discovered to be fake. In blatant defiance of the SC verdict, the PPP hierarchy again awarded a party ticket to Dasti who went on to win the bye-election. Using fake documents anywhere is a crime, compounded by perjury in passing it off as authentic. With both the president and PM openly remonstrating that using such fraud and perjury to enter the Parliament does not constitute a crime, it has opened a Pandora's box in becoming a test case for the rule of law. How can any person who is clearly guilty of such misdemeanors be acceptable to responsible party leaders (and associates thereof) for a seat in parliament? If that is not contempt for the SC, nothing is!

One is not surprised as to why the federal law minister, meant to be in the forefront of enforcing the rule of law in the land, 'the lady doth protest too much' (with apologies to Shakespeare). As an affected party, Dr (?) Babar Awan has a vested interest in glossing over and/or condoning such crimes. As far back as Nov 2008, The News broke the story about his doctorate from supposedly a 'Monticello University' being fake and fraudulent, that particular entity had no charter even as an educational institution, let alone doling out PhDs. Why is the Election Commission (EC) deaf, dumb and blind to such wrongdoings?

The obnoxious Punjab Assembly resolution passed unanimously by our elected legislators clearly shows their character and mindset, that is why democracy is frequently put to the sword. The major political parties are now scrambling to distance themselves from this atrocious piece of the parliamentary business, the fact remains that every political party present in the assembly was a party because it was unanimous. That is only the proverbial trip of the iceberg and is not confined to a few rotten apples alone, with scores of our legislators sitting over destiny of this nation suspected to have bogus credentials, the resolution has snowballed the deliberate fraud and perjury into a scandal of outrageous proportions. The three 'Js', 'Jenerals' (to quote Pakistan's spelling bee champion PML-N MPA Sanaullah Masti-khel), Judiciary and Journalists, were responsible for the 'conspiracy' to unearth the truth about the Parliamentarians with fake credentials! With Nawaz Sharif, quickly recognizing the dangers starting to backtrack smartly (including calling for Mastikhel's political head on a platter), Mastikhel's future is as a scapegoat. He was only a mouthpiece, the despicable and dishonorable Punjab Assembly resolution was passed in presence of brother Shahbaz Sharif. Given the rules and procedures of assembly business, the resolution could not have been done entertained Chief Minister's tacit consent. It now appears he may have been the driving force.

One is not surprised about such contempt for the media or for the rule of law. The PML-N mindset has not changed since their storming of the SC in 1997 to forestall a verdict against then PM Mian Nawaz Sharif when Shahbaz Sharif as Chief Minister bussed in party stalwarts from Lahore to Islamabad. Most PML-N leaders pleaded innocence till positively identified by CCTV tapes desecrating the SC by performing 'Bhangra' in the SC corridors. To quote my article, 'The Ugly Face of Fascism' (Nov 29, 1997), Mian Sahib's detractors have been saying ad-nauseum that he has people around him who with a tendency to use brute force to shove their outrageous ideas into PML policies. Regretfully if Mian Sahib does not rein them in, then PML will change for the worse. Regretfully what we saw on Friday went beyond that. Eleven years later, and despite the Sharifs having suffered privations and exile, very regretfully the mindset remains the same. Committing fraud and indulging in perjury has become a national pastime. From the declaration of assets to campaign spending, candidates routinely indulge in blatant falsehood. The Wealth Tax and Income Tax returns of many politicians and landowners sitting in parliament would put the tax returns of a salaried employee in the middle management cadre to shame. No wonder accountability is so difficult in a country where most documents are falsified and almost all statements or cross-examinations under oath are false and/or tainted, are we surprised why corruption is so deeply rooted in every sphere of our lives?

To quote my article, 'Perjury' of Feb 12, 2010, for personal gain, whether monetary or otherwise, false representation of facts and distortions, a gentlemanly phrase for "outright lies", is the order of the day. Giving false statements under oath is perjury plain and simple, and perjury is a punishable offence. The Oxford Dictionary defines Perjury as 'an act of willfully telling an untruth when on oath', and goes on to use the words, 'lying, mendacity, mendaciousness, falsification, deception, untruthfulness, dishonesty, duplicity'. In simple terms, a perjurer is a criminal and must be treated as one. In most countries, perjury carries exemplary punishment, ruthless enough for people to try and avoid giving a statement under oath lest that statement (or part thereof) be detected to be false.

All over the developed world, the drop in corruption has been commensurate with convictions for perjury. Automatic and severe punishment acts as a deterrent of sorts. In Pakistan every enquiry, every investigation, every trial, every arbitration, etc reeks of rampant falsification with absolute impunity, whether it is statements before the Oath Commissioner, particularly in the matter of real estate, as paid (or motivated) witnesses in any trial before the court etc. How many times have our honourable judges made an example of 'professional' witnesses? While those with fraudulent credentials deserve punishment what about those responsible for selecting such candidates for Parliamentary seats, is it not their responsibility to ensure such fraud is not perpetuated? The tragedy is that our uniformed young men in Swat and South Waziristan, and innocent civilians throughout the land, are dying by the hundreds while such frauds and perjurers keep enjoying the luxuries of power. The judiciary and the journalists having raised the flag, maybe it is time for our 'jenerals' to display solidarity with the same spine as that displayed by those they are sending into battle (including many generals) to die and suffer injuries for the sake of this country.

And as the Punjab Assembly resolution has shown, such criminals become brazen and shameless when democracy becomes a sham and there is no accountability. One has no quarrel with the vast percentage of honourable men and women in the Punjab Assembly (and in other assemblies), but they do have a duty to force their black sheep colleagues out of the business of legislation. Or one day someone else will do it for them! The implementation of SC's verdict declaring NRO null and void has become vital for Pakistan's survival as a civilized state in the comity of nations. Democracy can only be saved by cleansing the political process of criminals. Repeating a phrase from an earlier article, 'when criminals function in the name of justice, justice itself becomes a crime.'