The proponents of Justice assume guilt without proof or process

Shaheryar Azhar, moderator, The Forum

Since everyone (or mostly everyone) assumes that Asif Ali Zardari and other politicians are corrupt no matter if they have not been convicted after 8 to 16 years of trials, scores of suits from stealing a pin to selling one’s mother, from a simple abuse of power to murder of one’s brother-in-law, no also one’s wife, millions of dollars of expenditure for collecting proof by the most ‘powerful’ and ‘honest’ government in Pakistan in trying its hardest to prove their guilt, eleven years of jail without conviction and since none of this matters to such people, a simple refutation from Asif Ali Zardari is worth posting.

These people, in addition as it must now be clear, also believe that such politicians should somehow be punished anyway. How? And by whom? For this they don’t care much – any old illegitimate man in uniform sitting as he always appears to them on a white charger issuing arbitrary justice will do. These proponents of Justice assume guilt without proof or process. The other tragedy is that the issue of corruption, assuming every allegation is correct, dominates political discourse to the exclusion of everything else. Financial corruption to this moderator is simply a social phenomenon (its quantum being tied directly to the inequality and over-all progress of the society) to be dealt with through the political and judicial process in time, not through coups and tearing up the constitution. The most important issue is one of political corruption and illegitimate or extra-judicial assumption and use of power.