Anil Kalhan

(Posted at Dorf on Law)

Vice President Cheney has been all over the news this week. First, Cheney made headlines for his claim that he need not comply with rules requiring all executive branch entities to report to an oversight office in the National Archives on how they handle classified information because the Office of the Vice President is not part of the “executive branch.” Second, the Washington Post has been running a series of revealing stories this week on the dominant role that Cheney has played in the Bush administration across a range of issues.

For more on all of that, have a look at what our colleagues Jack Balkin and Marty Lederman have to say over at Balkinization. Here, I simply wish to draw attention, in the context of this week’s reports, to some of last week’s Cheney-related news, which I suspect some folks may have missed — namely, the apparently dominant role that Cheney’s office also has been playing in the Bush administration’s continued, seemingly unconditional support for General Pervez Musharraf in the current political crisis in Pakistan (which is not discussed in the Post series). First, from a column by Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid in the Post:

[Recent years have seen] a dramatic drop-off in U.S. expertise on Pakistan. Retired American officials say that, for the first time in U.S. history, nobody with serious Pakistan experience is working in the South Asia bureau of the State Department, on State’s policy planning staff, on the National Security Council staff or even in Vice President Cheney’s office. . . . “They know nothing of Pakistan,” a former senior U.S. diplomat said.

Current and past U.S. officials tell me that Pakistan policy is essentially being run from Cheney’s office. The vice president, they say, is close to Musharraf and refuses to brook any U.S. criticism of him. This all fits; in recent months, I’m told, Pakistani opposition politicians visiting Washington have been ushered in to meet Cheney’s aides, rather than taken to the State Department.

No one in Foggy Bottom seems willing to question Cheney’s decisions. Boucher, for one, has largely limited his remarks on the crisis to expressions of support for Musharraf. . . . Meanwhile, Boucher’s boss, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, demands democracy and media freedom in Venezuela but apparently deems such niceties irrelevant to Pakistan. [link]

Second, from an interview that longtime Asia expert Selig Harrison gave to the Daily Times:

Harrison said that Washington’s Pakistan policy is run by Vice President Dick Cheney’s office, adding that there is a group in there, which is pushing for a showdown with Iran, including military action, over its nuclear programme before Bush’s term expires.

The American Vice President attaches great importance to Musharraf and it would appear that an understanding has been reached with him on Iran. The Cheney lobby is keen on destabilising Iran, said Harrison, who recently returned form a week-long trip to Iran.

He further claimed that Cheney’s last visit to Pakistan was Iran-related, during which Cheney wanted to find out if there was more information to be gleaned from Dr AQ Khan on Iran’s nuclear programme and what assistance his network had rendered to it. [link]

Meanwhile, the crowds continue to throng around “suspended” Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry as he travels across Pakistan to speak to gatherings of Pakistani lawyers. This past weekend’s stop was Multan, where a 30-plus hour yatra from Lahore culminated in a speech before thousands of lawyers and Musharraf opponents. “Your motto is supremacy and implementation of law and independence of the judiciary,” he told the lawyers, “[and] I am confident your movement will succeed.” [link] All of this comes amidst new allegations that Musharraf’s intelligence agencies are bugging judges’ telephones.

Hai rabba, between Cheney and Musharraf, who’s giving advice to whom? Perhaps the same people are giving legal advice to both of them. If it’s constitutionally permissible for Musharraf to manipulate electoral rules so he can continue to serve as both President and Chief of Army Staff, as he has hinted that he might, then maybe (among other things) it’s also possible that Cheney’s Office of the Vice President is a non-branch of government after all.

As our colleague Sepoy, over at Chapati Mystery, might say, tick tock….

(Posted at Dorf on Law)

Our colleague, Diane Marie Amann, draws our attention to, and invites our nominations for, an interesting contest that she and her co-bloggers at IntLawGrrls are conducting to name the “Seven Legal Wonders of the World.” Here’s Diane’s description of the contest and its inspiration:

A contest launched 6 years ago by the entrepreneurial New7Wonders Foundation has driven more than 4 million people to cast 28 million votes for humankind’s 7 most wondrous feats of engineering or architecture (of the traditional 7 only 1, the Pyramids, is still in existence). You’ve got just 60 days left to choose among the 21 finalists, which range from Athens’ Acropolis temple to Bavaria’s Neuschwanstein castle, from the statue of Jesus in Rio to the Statute of Liberty in New York. If the spirit moves you, vote here.

Or, help IntLawGrrls put together a different list — of the World’s 7 Legal Wonders. Post a comment or e-mail us at intlawgrrls@gmail.com with your nominee. Names of persons, things, events, ideas all are fair game. And your nominee may be a “wonder” in the negative as well as the positive sense of the word. [link]

So far, the nominees include: (1) the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, (2) the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, (3) the Law Merchant, and (4) the Edicts of Aśoka.

Just as interesting as any particular candidate for “Legal Wonder” may be what the nominations say about the cultures from which these Legal Wonders have emerged and our own. Mary Rebecca Bynum has written that when she teaches her undergraduate course on “The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World,” her purpose is not simply to teach students about the Seven Wonders themselves, but to explore “how members of one culture view other cultures, and what use they make of other cultures in their own world.” This contest, too, may be as much a window into our own values, ideals, and culture as it is into the cultures that produced the particular “Legal Wonders” being nominated.

So who or what do we nominate here at Dorf on Law? There are of course many worthy candidates, but I nominate Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, a Dalit (or so-called “untouchable”) leader who at times clashed with Gandhi and other Congress leaders during the Indian independence movement and later became one of the principal architects of the Indian Constitution, which among many other notable things abolished “untouchability.” Over fifty years after his death, Ambedkar remains a deeply influential figure in contemporary India, although to many people also a controversial one. A crude indicator of progress under Ambedkar’s Constitution may be seen in the sweeping recent victory in the state of Uttar Pradesh by the Bahujan Samajwadi Party, a party created principally to represent and advocate on behalf of Dalits. Not only did the BSP surprise observers by winning an absolute majority of seats in the state — returning Mayawati, the first Dalit woman to lead any of India’s states, to power as the state’s Chief Minister — but it apparently did so with significant support from a “rainbow coalition” that included significant numbers of upper caste Hindus. On the other hand, for a sense of how far India has yet to go to fully realize its formal abolition of untouchability, recall my post on the status of Dalits from several months ago.

Feel free to post your nominations for the “Legal Wonders” contest, along with your reasons, in the comments to this post (or, co-bloggers, perhaps in blog posts of your own). Or send an email to intlawgrrls@gmail.com. If it seems easier to identify “legal blunders” than “legal wonders,” that need not hold you back, for if a blunder is bad enough — if it’s a downright fiasco — perhaps it inspires wonder on that basis alone. So whether fabulous or fiasco, fire away with your nominations.

A couple of weeks ago, as noted in the South Asian Journalists Association’s blog SAJAforum, Pakistan’s U.N. Ambassador, Munir Akram, took a break from his duties as diplomat to perform a quick stint as media critic. In a letter to the editor, he responded to a New York Times editorial criticizing continued U.S. support for General Pervez Musharraf. Akram complained that The Times’ “repeated references to our president as a military dictator are offensive. President Pervez Musharraf was elected in accordance with Pakistan’s Constitution by our national and provincial parliaments. His re-election will be similarly democratic.”

The Times did not exactly get it wrong. . . .

Continue reading at AsiaMedia….

(Posted at Dorf on Law)

UPDATE (6/7/2007): An updated and more complete discussion of the issues in this post may be found in my column for AsiaMedia on Wednesday.

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A couple of weeks ago, in response to a New York Times editorial critical of continued U.S. support for General Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan’s U.N. ambassador, Munir Akram, took a break from his duties as diplomat to perform a quick stint as media critic (thanks, SAJAforum). In a letter to the editor printed last week, Ambassador Akram complained that the Times’s “repeated references to our president as a military dictator are offensive. President Pervez Musharraf was elected in accordance with Pakistan’s Constitution by our national and provincial parliaments. His re-election will be similarly democratic.” [link]

It will be recalled that Musharraf was swept into office with 98 percent of the official tally in an April 2002 referendum that presented voters with no opponents and the following ballot question:

Do you want to elect President General Pervez Musharraf as President of Pakistan for next five years for the survival of local government system, restoration of democracy, continuity and stability of reforms, eradication of extremism and sectarianism and for the accomplishment of Quaid-i-Azam’s concept.

At the time, leading Pakistani lawyers and human rights advocates concluded that the polling was not free and fair and even questioned the very legitimacy of the referendum itself under the Pakistan Constitution. [link] Just last week, soon after Ambassador Akram sent his letter to the Times, a former Pakistani high court judge made the same arguments to the Supreme Court panel hearing the allegations against suspended Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry:

A former judge claimed yesterday that President Pervez Musharraf had no authority to suspend Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, arguing that the 2002 referendum that kept the military ruler in power was unconstitutional.

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“People were made into fools,” [Fakhruddin G.] Ibrahim said of the referendum, adding that the vote’s lack of legal authority leaves Musharraf “not competent”.

Ibrahim called for an end to military rule, saying Musharraf had received a stamp of approval from a subservient parliament. Musharraf is expected to seek a new five-year presidential term later this year from the same parliament, but has yet to announce whether he will give up his position as army chief — the source of most of his power. [link]

Ibrahim might want to check his inbox to see if there is any fan mail from Ambassador Akram. But if all he and the Times get from Pakistani officials is correspondence, then maybe they should consider themselves fortunate, for just last week:

Three Pakistani journalists working for foreign news organisations in Karachi found bullets placed in their cars in what a local media body described on Wednesday as an attempt to intimidate the press into silence. “It is very threatening. This is a serious issue. It is an attempt to gag the press, but we will not compromise on our objectivity,” Mazhar Abbas, secretary-general of the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists, told Reuters. [link]

Over the weekend, the government and its allies cracked down on the electronic media, taking three independent TV news channels off the air for several hours. [link, link] Live coverage of Chaudhry’s speech before a rally in Abbotabad (apparently the largest pro-Chaudhry rally to date) was blocked, and one of the channels, Geo TV, was apparently blocked on account of a broadcast critical of Musharraf. All of this came after weeks of media intimidation — countless warnings by senior government officials that the media must “use its press freedom with responsibility” and “avoid inappropriate reporting,” a number of police raids on journalists’ offices, violent attacks targeting journalists during the last month’s violence in Karachi, and explicit threats last week by both government officials and the national cable operators association that media restrictions were likely on the horizon.

And then today, the other shoe dropped:

Under an emergency ordinance that takes effect[] immediately, Musharraf made a raft of amendments to regulations governing the electronic media, including private television channels that the general has accused of anti-government bias.

The ordinance says authorities can seal the premises of broadcasters or distributors breaking the law, and raises possible fines for violations from 1 million rupees ($16,665) to 10 million rupees ($166,650).

The Pakistan Media Regulatory Authority can also suspend the license of an offender. [link]

No word just yet on the circumstances ostensibly justifying the “emergency” measures. But not to be left out of the fun, Pakistan Prime Minister (and former Citibank executive/would-be ladies’ man) Shaukat Aziz chimed in as well, warning that the media should “refrain from maligning prestigious state institutions, particularly the armed forces. Those who talk against the armed forces are enemies of Pakistan.” [link] One cannot be entirely certain, but it’s possible that Aziz’s comments were directed not only at the electronic media, but also at Dr. Ayesha Siddiqa, whose new book “Military, Inc.” — launched on Thursday, banned by Friday — investigates the lucrative private business interests that feed the Pakistan Army’s power. [link]

Musharraf and his colleagues say that they are all for freedom of the press. In fact, just last month, Musharraf participated in the launch of a new English all-news TV channel by Dawn, a newspaper founded by Jinnah himself (and one that has been engaged in a bitter dispute with Musharraf’s government for several years). At that event, Musharraf took “full credit for the mushrooming of private television channels, saying that whatever freedom there was in the country it was only because of him. ‘I alone had insisted that we must give them freedom so that the media could hold everyone accountable,’ he said while recalling the early years in power when he had framed the media policy.” However, in that same speech Musharraf also warned, as he frequently has before, that the media must “demonstrate what he called a certain level of responsibility in the projection of Pakistan” in its coverage. [link]

Explicit media censorship was, of course, a key element of Indira Gandhi’s Emergency in India, as this Time Magazine article from July 1975 reminds us:

Strict censorship has prevented the once lively Indian press (some 830 daily newspapers) from printing anything other than official handouts about the crisis. Government proscriptions against “unauthorized, irresponsible or demoralizing news items” last week were extended from articles and editorials to cartoons, photos and even advertisements. This further muzzling of the press may have been in response to a few cases of surreptitious sniping at the government’s measures; in Kerala, for example, one paper ran a cartoon depicting Mrs. Gandhi dressed as Louis XIV with a caption reading “I am India.” The censors also closely monitored the dispatches of foreign newsmen. Last week the government summarily expelled Washington Post Correspondent Lewis M. Simons, who had stirred official ire by reporting that the army did not solidly back Mrs. Gandhi. [link]

The violations of press freedom in Musharraf’s Pakistan have not yet reached such an explicit and blatant point, and perhaps never will. Musharraf might well conclude that he can more effectively advance his domestic and international political objectives by relying on more subtle forms of interference with press freedom than total bans, explicit censorship, and the declaration of a complete state of emergency. Regardless, even short of the extremes reached in Indira Gandhi’s India, the situation is not particularly encouraging.

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Meanwhile, according to the State Department, “[t]he direction that President Musharraf set for Pakistan is a good one, and we are supporting that.” [link] And in the process, some moderate Pakistanis say that they “are coming to despise the USA.” Not that there are necessarily any simple answers here, but mull over that the next time someone tries to tell you that “they” hate “us” simply because “they hate our freedoms.”