WE begin with the Founder and Maker, Mohammad Ali Jinnah: "...every successive government of Pakistan will be worse than its predecessor."

After Jinnah, all those who came, the leaders who claimed to have been freely and fairly elected, those who were chosen to lead, and those who rode in on horseback, have ended up by being hanged, have fallen from the skies, have been jailed, exiled, or put in the stocks.

Now we have Musharraf who over a year and a half down the road still appears to be sincere, has still not allowed himself to be corrupted, has not yet claimed to have been sent on a divine mission, can still differentiate between religion and religiosity, and, maybe, given time, he could prove Jinnah to have been wrong.

Far too clever Bhutto, my erstwhile friend, a tyrant in the garb of a democrat, crowned himself as the civilian chief martial law administrator (the first in history). The sole opposition he feared, he used to say, "is that of the largest and most disciplined party, the army."

He juggled with the generals, chose as his army chief the most obsequious, the bowing-and-scraping Mard-e-Momin, Mard-i-Haq, Zia-ul-Haq. Zia saw him out, hanged him, and had he not fallen from the skies nine years later, might well still have been ruling this roost.

Now to Rafiq Ahmad Tarar, the sacked president, seen off by General Pervez Musharraf who termed him a man of honour and dignity. Why did the general have to say this? People do not care for hypocritical statements. Tarar was first a judge, and a bad judge at that. He has at least two unhappy judgements to his name.

Criminal Appeal 4/SAC/1 decided by Tarar in February 1994 (1994 SCMR 1456) concerned the case of Muhammad Ashraf & Others versus the state and was an appeal against the enforcement of the Hudood Ordinance and the conviction of the appellants by the Special Court for Speedy Trials no. 11 at Lahore. Ashraf and two others had been sentenced to have their right hands amputated from the wrist and their left legs from the ankle, to seven years RI, and to a fine of Rs 20,000 each. Their crime was the theft of Rs 40,000 and of a licensed pistol and for causing "simple and grievous injuries" in the process.

Tarar wrote the judgement, the concluding paragraph of which reads:"Before convicting the appellants, the learned trial court considered all the relevant provisions of law, including sections 10, 11, 16 read with sections 7 and 20 of the Offences Against Property (Enforcement of Hudood) Ordinance 1979 which cater for situations where Had shall not be imposed and/or enforced and on proved facts rightly concluded that the offence committed by the appellants squarely falls within the ambit of section 17(3) of the Ordinance. The only punishment provided by section 17(3) is the amputation of right hand from the wrist and left leg from the ankle which has been imposed by the learned trial and we confirm the same." This was seven years ago when Tarar was sitting as Chairman of the Supreme Appellate Court at Lahore.

Another judgement he wrote was in March 1993 in the matter of Criminal Appeal 91/SAC/L/92. He opened up: "This appeal by Khalil-uz-Zaman convict is directed against the judgment of the learned Special Court for Speedy Trials-II Lahore, whereby he was convicted u/s 302 and 324 read with Section 337-F of the PPC. Under Section 302-PPC he was sentenced to death as Tazir and was directed to pay Rs 50,000 as compensation to the legal heirs of Mst Asia Perveen deceased u/s 544-A of the Cr.P.C. and u/s 324/337-F of the PPC he was sentenced to imprisonment for 10 years... In the circumstances, the appellant is liable for Qatl-e-Amd u/s 302(a) of the PPC punishable with death as Qisas. In that view of the matter, the order directing payment of compensation is set aside. His conviction and sentence u/s 337-F is also set aside and with the above modification his appeal is dismissed."

The convict appealed against the judgement of Tarar, Chairman of the Supreme Appellate Court, Lahore, and his appeal was heard by a bench of the Supreme Court headed by Justice Munir Khan and the judgement of that Bench (PLD 1994 SC 835) recorded:

"... we are in no manner of doubt that the trial court and also the learned Appellate Court had no lawful authority/jurisdiction/power whatsoever to convict the petitioner under section 302 PPC or to impose penalty of death on him, and have acted in gross violation of law... If the impugned judgements are allowed to stand then the petitioner would be deprived of his life obviously in pursuance of orders which suffer from lack of jurisdiction and authority, gross carelessness, illegality and were violative of Fundamental Rights guaranteed by the Constitution. Fortunately for the petitioner, our Constitution gives protection to the citizens of Pakistan against illegal treatment in the matter of life, liberty and body... In this case the courts, vide impugned judgements, have ordered the petitioner to be hanged to death although he was/is not liable to death in law for the offence allegedly committed by him.

"There can be no case more fit and proper than the present one for interference in exercise of our original jurisdiction... Had the courts taken the trouble of reading three sections of the Pakistan Penal Code, i.e. sections 306, 307 and 308, we are sure they would not have sentenced the accused/petitioner to death under Section 302 PPC. The error committed by the courts in convicting the accused/petitioner under Section 302 PPC and sentencing him to death is so serious that had the petitioner eventually been hanged to death, we are afraid it would have amounted to murder through judicial process..."

Another case involving the good Justice Tarar at around the same time was that of a 20-year-old girl and a young man accused of adultery and of killing the girl's husband. On extremely flimsy evidence a sessions judge in the NWFP sentenced them to be hanged to death. They appealed to the High Court, the sentence was upheld, they then appealed to the Supreme Court where they found Justice R.A. Tarar. He upheld the sentence and the 20-year-old girl would have been hanged but for a presidential reprieve.

Tarar has still to explain why, when the judges of the Supreme Court revolted against their Chief Justice Sajjad Ali Shah in November 1997, he chose to clandestinely fly to Quetta in the middle of the night to meet the Supreme Court judges of the Quetta Bench. Did he prevent the course of justice?

Musharraf has rid us of Tarar, he has dissolved the assemblies and the senate and sent all of them, the majority corrupt and useless, home. They all bear collective guilt. Not a tear has been shed at their departure, other than tears of their own.

Our past writers of 'historical judgements' have opined that Musharraf has elevated himself to the presidency unconstitutionally. That is their opinion. Our present chief arbiter of law and provider of justice, Chief Justice of Pakistan Irshad Hassan Khan, deemed it right and correct to administer the oath of office and to swear in General Pervez Musharraf as president of Pakistan, which he did on June 20. The losers will go to our courts, waste their time and our money. The people hope that Musharraf's government will not in this case spend millions of rupees of the people's money on high-flying second rate lawyers who will dispense much time and energy on losing the government's case.

We must hope that our able independent Chief Justice of Pakistan ensures that his writ prevails.

To these of our foreign friends who insist on preaching the virtues of democracy, I ask if they are aware of the capabilities of our self-appointed democrats? Zulfikar Ali Bhutto promulgated our Constitution in 1973 and within four hours had the fundamental rights enshrined therein suspended and had many members of the opposition jailed. Do they know that it takes our democrats less time to push through the National Assembly and Senate a constitutional amendment than it takes the Jadoogar of Jeddah to draft and have an ordinance promulgated? Do they know that we had a prime minister who thought he could keep the army out by passing a constitutional amendment, the 13th in line? Do they know that the same devastator of our country tried to replace the chief of our army staff with one of his favourites who commanded less men and weapons than commanded by the surgeon-general of the army.

Now, President General Pervez Musharraf, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the armed forces, Chief of Army Staff, Chief Executive, has invited the noise-makers of our sorry bunch of politicians to meet him before he flies across the border to talk to Atal Behari Vajpayee, the Indian prime minister. They are to meet him on June 27 and to lunch with him thereafter. Reportedly, Rhodes Scholar Waseem Sajjad, former Senate chairman, and my good friend Ilahi Bakhsh Soomro, former speaker of the National Assembly, have also been invited. It should be a fun-filled day.

To end on a serious note. Musharraf will be flying over the border to meet a formidable friend (let us not call him a foe). Vajpayee has grown up imbibing the term 'Bania, mooch nichi.' to understand the full import of these words I suggest he have a discussion with Gujerati-speaking Suleman Dawood, father of Musharraf's minister Razzak. Wise Suleman grew up with the Banias.