|
Commentators have called the assassination of Benazir Bhutto
Pakistan’s
“Kennedy moment.” Her death on December 27th, less than two weeks
before parliamentary elections in which she would have been a leading candidate,
has thrown Pakistan
into a state of shock and turmoil.
Although Bhutto has been described as a polarizing figure and
perhaps a flawed leader, the circumstances of her death are of the most urgent
concern to us at present. When political leaders are assassinated to keep them
from participating in democratic elections, democracy itself suffers. People
who are deprived of the ability to vote for the candidates of their choice may
well question the value of democracy. If the political power cannot be the
subject of peaceful transition through fair elections, obedience to the rule of
law will inevitably wane.
Of course, Pakistan
was a deeply troubled country even before Bhutto’s death. In mid-December,
American Bar Association President William Neukom led a delegation of ABA leaders in a meeting
with Pakistan’s
ambassador to the United
States. The ABA leaders presented the signatures of
13,000 American lawyers on petitions calling on Pakistan to restore constitutional
law to that nation. Specifically, the ABA
urged Pakistan
to restore the Pakistani constitution as it existed before the November 3rd
emergency decree by President Pervez Musharraf, to reinstate Supreme Court
justices and high court judges who were removed from office, and to release protesters
wrongly arrested during a state of emergency.
Now, Bhutto’s killing has made the future of democracy in Pakistan even more
uncertain. Neverthless, Neukom said in a statement, “The ABA continues to
believe that the rule of law offers the best future for Pakistan, and
is the path to lasting security. America’s lawyers are committed to
advancing the rule of law in Pakistan
and other nations.”
Neukom’s sentiments are in the best tradition of the American legal
profession. If American lawyers do not ensure that the United States stands
up for democratic ideals in Pakistan,
the people of that country will lose whatever faith they have left in democracy
as a concept. And as one of our most famous judges, Learned Hand, once observed,
that faith is the key to democracy itself. “Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women;
when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help
it,” Hand said. “While it lies there it needs no constitution, no law, no court
to save it.”
|
