Courts win support for graft fight
THE public feels courts are doing a commendable job in prosecuting senior politicians involved in the US$19 million (about HK$146.8 million) bribery scandal that has paralysed political activity since January.
It also believes the Judiciary should continue in its efforts to cleanse the political system, mired in corruption and nepotism and popularly perceived as having crossed all barriers of accountability.
According to a survey, 87 per cent of people feel the Judiciary was forced to step in as the Government had lost all credibility and was incapable of fulfilling its responsibilities.
Justice A. M. Ahmadi, head of the Supreme Court, has said the courts were forced into playing an active role after the legislature and executive ceased to function in an 'effective manner'.
He said the situation was not a case of one democratic institution trying to exert power over another.
'It is merely a case of citizens finding new ways of expressing concern over national events and exerting their involvement in the democratic process,' he said.
The standoff has been building over the past three years as Prime Minister P. V. Narasimha Rao's Congress (I) Party has proved increasingly incapable of governing.
From ordering the closure of polluting industries corroding the marble of the Taj Mahal to directing municipalities to clear garbage, the Supreme Court turned its attention to the four-year-old bribery scandal being investigated by the Central Bureau of Investigation.
The inquiries followed the seizure of diaries belonging to a multi-millionaire business family which detailed huge payments made to ministers and politicians between 1988 and 1991 for government contracts and use as election funds.
Surprised over the inexplicably slow progress, the Supreme Court directed the bureau to swiftly press charges, irrespective of the people involved.
According to the bureau, 159 people were involved, including 62 politicians, mainly from the Congress Party, 23 senior civil servants and 24 businessmen and entrepreneurs.
The bureau charged 42 people including seven federal ministers, 17 MPs from the ruling party and senior members from the two largest opposition parties, the Bharatiya Janata Party and the centrist Janata Dal over the past two months.
Politicians fear the Judiciary's interventionist role but are wary of taking a stand because of the support the court's active role has aroused among the public.
'The Government is malfunctioning badly and Parliament's credibility is so low that we cannot possibly take on the Judiciary right now,' said a senior Congress MP.
