By Ardeshir Cowasjee
Time and time again one must retreat to the beginnings of the country and the exhortation of its founder and maker, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, that the first and paramount duty of any government is the imposition and maintenance of law and order.
What he did not envisage was the deterioration of the judiciary of his country, which was firm and steadfast during the short time he had.
For without an independent and responsible judiciary law and order is a far cry. And as we all well know, within six years of the country’s birth the judiciary had crumbled, by then largely bereft of its inherited judges. There has been no government since 1954 which could tolerate or survive an independent and honourable judiciary. Such has been our fate.