Spotlight: Judiciary up against formidable govt machinations: PPP content and happy with corruption and bad governance.

Byline: WAJID NAEEMUDDIN

Judiciary's relentless efforts to root out corruption are matched in equal measure by the PPP government's relentless efforts under President Zardari and Prime Minister Gilani to thwart its efforts to achieve results. Some of this (putting spanners in judiciary's works) can take one or more of the following forms:

1) Appoint to high offices in the anti-corruption departments, people who are themselves accused of serious crimes. Law Minister Babar Awan, Interior Minister Rehman Malik, Attorney General Latif Khosa are the high profile examples, which immediately come to mind.

2) Keep away people in the good books of the judiciary as effective in investigating and fighting crime, away from those functions by sacking them or transferring them to a neutral function, one which has nothing to do with fighting crime and corruption. Two FIA Directors, three AGs and many others have quit or were forced to leave due to government's resistance to judiciary's moves during the 32 months of PPP rule.

3) Make no effort to prosecute people who are alleged in the Media or otherwise to have committed serious crimes when they happen to be allegedly close to the high and mighty in the regime. Pak Steel scam and National Insurance Company are two ongoing examples.

JUDICIARY UP AGAINST FORMIDABLE OBSTACLES A glance through just the first week's published news of this month is enough to reveal the alarming state of affairs, highlighting the judiciary's efforts to enforce the rule of law and the PPP government's efforts to raise one difficulty after another in its way. How long can this go on? The following date-wise account of (just one week's) corruption cases, court proceedings and examples of the government's tacit acceptance of corruption, though by no means complete, is enough to give an idea of how deeply entrenched corruption has become in the country with the government dragging its feet on almost every important case pursued by the judiciary.

MALIK ORDERS CORRUPTION TO GET LOST BY 7 NOVEMBER! Newspapers on 1 …