Civil society terms memogate scandal an attempt to thwart democracy

Civil society terms memogate scandal an attempt to thwart democracy; Says threatening the representative system tantamount to attack on sovereignty of people.

The representatives of the Civil Society including nongovernmental organisations, labour organisations, academia, women’s rights bodies, and media persons expressed deep concern over the current political situation in the country
where a crisis is being manufactured on frivolous grounds, and is being referred to as the so-called Memogate. This has the potential of subverting democratically elected Parliament and the Constitution.

It is time all conspirators against democracy and the sovereignty of the people be called to account. Sovereignty belongs to the people who have agreed to exercise it through their representatives in a federal, parliamentary, and a democratic system. Any attempt
at arbitrarily altering this arrangement is tantamount to an attack on the sovereignty of the people. Various institutions of the state are supposed to function within their defined constitutional parameters and complement each other but they seem to be working
at cross-purposes, to the determent of public interest.

We emphasise that the role of political parties and political leaders is to represent their constituents’ interests and arrive at negotiated agreements to differences in agreed political forums.

The role of state’s security organizations is to serve the people through stipulated constitutional arrangements, under the command of the executive, and not to define what is or is not in the national interest.

The role of the judiciary is to protect the rights of the citizens from arbitrary abuse of executive power, and not to itself become a source of arbitrary executive power.

The role of the mass media is to help citizens hold powerful interests groups within and outside the state to promote their legitimate interests and hold violators of rights accountable, and not to itself act as an unaccountable interest group.

In opinion of the representatives of civil society organizations and labor organizations, parliament is the appropriate forum to discuss and investigate this issue and come up with findings.

They believed that any attack on the sovereignty of the people will be unjust. It will necessarily lead to conflict and must be resisted.

They appealed to the people of Pakistan to stand united and firm in support of democracy and to resist all attempts aimed at its subversion. The people of Pakistan have made great many sacrifices for the cause of democracy and they should not let any vested
interests trample their right to have a democratic and an elected representative system run the country.

Short URL: https://www.newspakistan.pk/?p=6599

Posted by Fayyaz Yaseen on Dec 19 2011. Filed under Pakistan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry