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home > by publication type > backgrounder > Pakistan’s Institutions and Civil Society
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| Author: | Jayshree Bajoria, Staff Writer |
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Updated: December 27, 2007
Pakistan’s army and its intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), have long been on top of the power structure in the country. Through coups, support of militants, and interference in their neighboring countries’ affairs, they have directly or indirectly held onto power and been at the center of major decision making in the country since its creation in August 1947. Militant Islamic groups are the other powerful players, sometimes standing on the same side as the government, as in the case of jihadis trained and recruited to fight wars in Kashmir and Afghanistan, and sometimes against the government—as with those challenging Gen. Pervez Musharraf’s rule today.
As Pakistan’s president and its army chief, Musharraf has targeted the country’s judiciary as specifically as he has extremists in his justification of the imposition of emergency rule in November 2007. One of the first steps Musharraf took under emergency rule was to replace Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, who he had initially tried to dismiss in March 2007. Musharraf then moved to crack down on the media, lawyers, social activists, and secular and religious political opponents. Who are these emerging players in Pakistani society and how do they fit in the power dynamics of a state dominated by the military?
The chief justice of the supreme court is appointed by the president. According to the Pakistani Constitution, the judiciary is separate from the executive and is set up as an independent authority to uphold the rule of law. The supreme court stands at the apex of the country’s judicial systems; it has wide jurisdiction, which includes the ability to issue pronouncements on issues it considers of public importance with reference to the enforcement of any of the fundamental rights. These include the right to life and liberty, the right to freedom of speech and expression, the right to fair trial, and the right to equality among others.
There is a high court in each of the four provinces, and there are other courts that exercise civil and criminal jurisdiction. Pakistan also has a Federal Shariat Court comprising eight Muslim judges, including a chief justice appointed by the president. Cases involving interpretation of Islam are referred to this court. Legal scholar Paula R. Newberg notes in her book, Judging the State: Courts and Constitutional Politics in Pakistan, that Pakistan's courts and judges are cast as protectors of the constitution in a separation-of-powers system. In many circumstances, however, they have found it expedient or necessary to accommodate constitutional changes or unconstitutional maneuvers by Pakistan’s leaders. They have done so either because they thought this was essential to their own survival or that of the state. On three occasions when military coups ousted democratically elected governments in the country, “the judiciary not only failed to check extra-constitutional regime change, but also endorsed and abetted the consolidation of illegally gained power,” says an International Crisis Group report. Newberg argues that over time, this has weakened the rule of law and given the government leeway for ever-more repressive action.
In November 2007, Chaudhry and several other supreme court judges refused to sign Musharraf’s decision to suspend the constitution and rule by decree. “This is unprecedented in Pakistan’s history,” says Hassan Abbas, research fellow at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. Abbas points out that Chaudhry, through his suo moto (acting on his own initiative) actions, has demanded greater accountability for bureaucrats, police, and even the intelligence agencies, something that was inconceivable in Pakistan before him. He also gained support of Pakistan’s lawyers, who are one of the best networked communities in the country, able to reach deep into rural areas. But the ICG report writes that the executive “exercises control over the courts by using the system of judicial appointments, promotions and removals to ensure its allies fill key posts.” Hence Musharraf’s replacement of Chaudhry, along with other judges, is not, in itself, illegal.
Civil society in Pakistan comprises nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), community-based organizations, think tanks, trade unions, cultural groups, and informal citizen organizations. In 2001, Civicus, an international alliance of civil society groups, described Pakistan’s civil society (PDF) as a “ collection of incoherent voices, conflicting worldviews and opposing interests” characterized by “unresolved struggle between the practices and values of pre-capitalist society and new modes of social life, between authoritarian legacies, and democratic aspirations.” According to the report, there are:
Because the political space afforded to civil society organizations is limited, these organizations have limited impact on policymaking and implementation. But Abbas says they are increasingly emerging as an important group. “Every time there is a crackdown by government or the military, these activists are the first to be rounded up. This means the military is challenged by them,” he says.
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan is one of the leading organizations fighting for human rights and democratic development in the country. It has loudly condemned the questionable practices of the military and political parties. Hina Jilani, the UN secretary general’s first special representative on human rights defenders in 2000, Asma Jahangir, UN special rapporteur of the UN Human Rights Commission, and I.A. Rehman, director of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, are well-known names in Pakistan who have gained prominence in the international community. They derive power from their high international profiles and alliances to international civil-society organizations.
Pakistan has more than ninety registered political parties covering a broad spectrum, from ethnic-based to religious to secular. The major parties are:
Even though there are a huge number of political parties in the country, the class base for most parties has failed to move beyond the traditional elite (Wikipedia maintains a reasonably accurate listing of minor parties). CFR Senior Fellow Daniel Markey says Pakistan is still a very top-down society “where a small elite sits above a massive base, and the inequalities of power and opportunities are extreme.” Linked to personalities rather than ideologies, Markey says Pakistan’s parties are institutionally weak and have not been able to respond to the needs of their constituents.
Internal power struggles in the absence of party elections have frequently led to the fragmentation of political parties, adding to the increasing number of political groups present in the country. Moreover, “in terms of ideology,” writes the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, “the major political parties have been moving closer towards each other, and generally steering away from agendas advocating radical social change.”
Besides religious political parties, local religious militant organizations operate in and significantly influence the country. According to Abbas, two dozen or so armed religious extremist groups, most of them officially banned, still operate either underground or under new names. Some of these groups consider themselves freedom fighters and are focused on Kashmir, others want to make Pakistan a theocratic state, and others have sectarian goals. Most of these groups benefit from sanctuary in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, where militants often have strong links with the Taliban. Abbas says that while supporting these organizations to wage its proxy wars in other countries, “the Pakistani government and military forgot that these groups had their own other agendas as well.” These groups have long been part of Pakistan’s foreign policy agenda, but Abbas argues that unless the Pakistani government curbs these local militants, as well as foreign and Taliban-linked extremists, the country “faces the prospect of increasing turmoil and instability.”
Besides these groups, there are people within the government, military, professional institutions, and even within the secular political parties who are religious and who believe in the establishment of a more conservative and religious society.
Pakistan has a history of vibrant, private, and independent print media such as English language newspapers, Dawn, The Frontier Post, Daily Times, The Friday Times, The News, and Urdu language newspapers like the Jang and Daily Khabrain. But print media cannot serve as mass media in a country where more than half the population is illiterate. With only 47 percent literacy (PDF), compared to an average of 60 percent in South Asia, Pakistan’s newspapers fail to reach a significant segment of population, especially in the rural areas. While newspapers inform the educated in urban areas, in rural Pakistan, people have long depended on radio and state-run telelvision channels for information in the absence of any private broadcast media in the country.
But eight years ago, after assuming power, Musharraf changed the landscape for private broadcast media in the country. A range of television, and radio outlets, as well as Internet sites, opened up as more and more private players won licenses to operate. Now Geo TV network, ARY-TV, and AAJ TV compete with state run news channels.
On The Media, a weekly National Public Radio program, described the changes Musharraf wrought as a cultural breakthrough. Freelance journalist Shahan Mufti told On The Media that until Musharraf opened up the media, “Pakistanis were used to being told things through the state media.” But now after private news channels started operating, “it allowed all sorts of voices of all political persuasion to appear on TV.” But the new and young broadcast media came into conflict with its creator in March 2007. The media showed live coverage of events as they unfolded when Musharraf tried to sack former Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, stirring up such public outcry against the decision that the president had to revert back and reinstate the judge. As Hamid Mir, executive editor of Geo TV, tells the Columbia Journalism Review, “a few years ago you could have said, ‘If it weren’t for Musharraf, private television wouldn’t be where it is.’ Today there is no doubt—if it weren’t for private television, General Musharraf wouldn’t be in the mess that he is in.” Soon after the chief justice event, Musharraf ordered a crackdown on GeoTV but that too was broadcasted live. Mufti says the government finally realized “breaking news had a huge effect on mobilizing people” and introduced new laws with restrictions on live coverage.
The growth of private broadcast media has been accompanied by increased “momentum of coercion, violence and intimidation against media,” states a 2006 report by the journalism watchdog group Internews Pakistan. According to the report, there has been a dramatic increase in the level of violence and intimidation against journalists and media organizations. Government authorities have arrested dozens of journalists, banned publications, shut down radio stations, raided presses, brought charges against journalists, and kept journalists out of certain territories, particularly the tribal areas.
Musharraf pulled the plug on all independent news channels after declaring emergency. Speaking on NPR, Mufti says that free media and the expectations of people in the most remote villages linked to it for information “has really become the backbone for the democratic movement in this country. It will be a very hard process to roll back.”
After seizing power in a coup in 1999, Musharraf undertook economic reforms, including fiscal adjustment; privatization of energy, telecommunications, and production; banking sector reform; and trade reform. According to economists, these have played a key role in the country’s economic recovery. The World Bank says that external factors—such as low interest rates, increased external assistance, and debt restructuring—also played a role. After 9/11, increased remittances and additional support from the United States helped increase the country’s external reserves. Since 2003, the economy has grown by more than 6.5 percent per year and poverty has declined significantly.
The main stock index has risen more than 1,000 percent since the end of 2001. Despite some of the worst unrest in years, the economy has continued to hum. The United States is the largest investor in Pakistan, accounting for nearly one-third of the country's foreign direct investment from July 2007 to September 2007, according to Pakistan's ministry of finance.
CFR’s Markey says the success of the financial markets and the expansion of the economy under Musharraf has been fundamental to his staying power. By keeping their money in Pakistan, investors—both domestic and international—continue to prop up the government. “It’s a vote of confidence that’s come out of the capital markets,” says Markey.
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