Editoral-Fake degrees

The ‘fake degrees’ issue continues to rumble on, injecting a fresh element of uncertainty in the assemblies. On Thursday, the Supreme Court ordered the Election Commission of Pakistan to initiate proceedings against the fake-degree holders which could lead to their eventual disqualification from the various assemblies. The matter is not so straightforward, however: a legal thicket means that it’s not clear if the ECP can proceed of its own accord — thus far it has maintained that it would require references from the speakers of the various assemblies and the chairman of the Senate. Before that can happen, though, the National Assembly may attempt some sort of legislation that could try and resolve the matter.

The background to all of this is of course Gen Musharraf’s tinkering with election-related laws in an attempt to keep political rivals out of the assemblies. When the time for nominations for the February 2008 elections rolled around, the degree requirement had been challenged in the Supreme Court and it was expected that it would be done away with. However, since it was still the law at the time nominations were to be made, the ECP requested all candidates to submit their higher educational degrees. Which is why, as estimated by the former secretary of the ECP, perhaps 140 members of the various assemblies filed fake degrees. Many, if not most, of those are believed to belong to the PML-N, which is acutely embarrassed that its era of ‘principled politics’ is being undermined so publicly.

At this point, a measure of pragmatism is required. If 140 members, and perhaps more, stand to be disqualified, an equivalent number of by-elections will have to be held. A mini mid-term election is not something the country needs presently. One way of looking at the fake degrees issue is that assembly members have lied in order to get elected and should be punished. But from the declaration of assets to campaign spending, candidates routinely lie and on a much bigger scale. In the case of fake degrees, however, it was a procedural hurdle deliberately put in place by Gen Musharraf to trip up candidates who the electorate might otherwise have genuinely elected. This of course does not justify the lie. And the Supreme Court was right to ignore the context and focus on what the law says. Given all of this perhaps a political-cum-legislative solution is the best away ahead. Legislation with retrospective effect is not something that should be encouraged, especially where it benefits assembly members themselves, but in the present instance it would be a small price to pay for righting a wrong of Gen Musharraf’s doing.

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