The Hutton Inquiry, currently winding down after examining some of the most powerful men in Britain including Tony Blair, has provided a riveting inside view of how the system works.

But more than that, it has shown us democracy at work in the truest possible sense of the word. As ministers and top civil servants were cross-questioned remorselessly by barristers before Lord Hutton, nobody was allowed to claim executive privilege or state security as a reason not to testify. Only Richard Dearlove, the head of MI6, Britain's overseas intelligence agency, was allowed to retain his traditional anonymity and give his evidence over a voice link.

The decision not to televise the proceedings has deprived the public of some gripping political drama. I made the effort last Monday of arriving at the Royal Courts of Justice at 7.30 in the morning to queue up for the handful of public seats available. The proceedings started promptly at 10:30 when Geoffrey Hoon, the secretary of state for defence was subjected to a merciless grilling by Queen's counsels representing the Kelly family, the BBC, the Inquiry and the government.

Himself a trained barrister, Hoon stood his ground, denying every implication that it was his ministry's decision to 'out' Dr Kelly through an arcane process of confirming his identity if a reporter asked a point blank question that led to the scientist's suicide. As the hair-splitting over the precise shade of meaning of various memos and documents became more and more abstract and unreal, the legal cut and thrust almost made it seem we were witnessing a group of highly skilled debaters, which in a sense we were.

But if Hoon had been impressive, Alistair Campbell was even more so. Tony Blair's controversial right-hand man, the PM's director of communications was widely regarded as the second most powerful man in the government. Distrusted and disliked by many in the Labour Party, Campbell was known as a political Rottweiler with a strongly developed instinct for the jugular. His resignation a few weeks ago was perhaps inevitable, and was widely welcomed across the political spectrum.

During his cross-questioning, the QCs were warily respectful, allowing him more leeway than they had given Hoon. However, his personal diary made it clear that the defence secretary had been a central figure in the decision to release Dr Kelly's name as Andrew Gilligan's source in the report that led to this sensational string of disclosures.

If you go to the Hutton Inquiry website, you will see not only the schedule of witnesses being called to appear, but also the transcript of every day's proceedings as well as all the documents placed before Lord Hutton. As an object lesson in democratic transparency, I know of no better example, and can think of few other countries where the prime minister and many members of his cabinet as well as top civil servants and intelligence officials would appear before a judge in a public hearing.

Contrast this with what is happening in Pakistan currently. Almost for a year now, the government has been bickering non-stop with the opposition over the Legal Framework Order. Whenever I log onto this newspaper's website, the front page contains virtually the same headlines: "MMA boycotts National Assembly"; "LFO condemned by ARD"; and "Musharraf refuses to concede Opposition demands". More often than not, I do not bother to read on as these stories are so predictable.

This is not to trivialize what is at stake. From Gen Musharraf's viewpoint - limited as it is by his military background and his understandable desire to hang on in power - the LFO makes perfect sense. It not only guarantees him five years as president, but also gives him the power to dissolve parliament or sack the prime minister. The problem is that Musharraf's ambitions are undemocratic to an extent that is unpalatable even by our army's standards.

Having said that, it cannot be maintained that those opposing the LFO are democracy's champions in shining armour. The PPP and the PML in its many manifestations have not held elections within their own cadres and membership, and the leading ranks of the MMA religious coalition are not known for their adherence to equal rights. Their ongoing mismanagement of affairs in the NWFP proves yet again that they are obscurantists who draw inspiration from the Taliban they admire so much. As usual, the first to suffer from fundamentalism are women and minorities.

If the year-long standoff proves anything, it is that democracy in Pakistan has been rendered practically irrelevant. As it is, the concept of representative government has been weakened and marginalized by years of debilitating military rule. To be honest, it must be said that politicians have contributed to this state of affairs by their own incompetence and corruption. But political institutions have been constantly sabotaged by repeated military interventions mounted by ambitious generals.

In a sense, the military now views politicians as a necessary evil to be used as fig leaves but who cannot be trusted with real power. Politicians, recognizing where real authority lies, are willing to cut a deal with the GHQ for a slice of the cake. Neither side cares for the people in whose name both claim to rule. In no other country of comparable size does the army wield the same power as it does in Pakistan. Even in Turkey, the generals have had to grudgingly acknowledge the supremacy of the parliament. In fact, one really has to think hard to come up with any nation where a serving general calls the shots. Burma is one, but that's about it as far as I can tell.

At a small dinner party the other evening, I met a British diplomat who had just been named ambassador to a major European capital. Over coffee, he said to me that he thought Pakistan was one of those unfortunate countries where, given the greed of politicians, army dictatorship was a better system than democracy. Having heard this line from both ignorant foreigners and complacent Pakistanis once too often, I told him that he had no idea what he was talking about.

I pointed out that each time we had gone to war it had been under a general, and that during earlier bouts of martial law, the press had been censored so stories about corruption in the top echelons of the military did not appear in the media. And above all, there is the insidious destabilizing activity of the intelligence agencies designed to keep elected leaders weak, to say nothing about the notorious electoral activities of the ISI. At the end of my tirade, the diplomat weakly confessed that he had little idea of the realities of politics in Pakistan.

While the standards set by the Hutton Inquiry might be too exacting for our leaders, they should start thinking seriously about achieving a modus vivendi that allows them to share power without endless coups and bickering over the spoils.