Eliminating Perjury
Justice is dependant upon the evidence brought before those dispensing justice. If the evidence is manipulated in any manner, the verdict given will be flawed. It stands to reason that for justice to be done, it is imperative to ensure the credibility of evidence. A witness deliberately making material false or misleading statement while under oath commits the offence of perjury. Not only in Pakistan, or in South Asia, but throughout the world, less so in the first world than in the third, perjury is regularly committed by those giving statements under oath. In the first world, serious notice is taken of perjury, and many are convicted and punished for it. One really wonders as to the record of such convictions in third world countries – presumably it would be abysmally low.
True or False?
In South Asia we think nothing of blaming the law enforcement agencies and the judicial system for the lack of justice delivered by our courts, at the same time we do nothing (and are reluctant to do anything) to strengthen the law, the hands of the enforcers of the law and the legal process that is meant to provide fair and equitable process, one that is not directly proportional to the efficiency of lawyers and the amount of money their clients are prepared to pay for it. The reasons for our present predicament are not complex or beyond redemption but the situation is growing worse by the day. Judgement upon any issue whether it be a legal process or simply routine matter, depends upon the evidence available in the case of the courts, the veracity of not only evidence but the credibility of the person putting forth that evidence. This may be statements from witnesses or documents supporting an argument for or against any issue. And that eventually is the essence of our problems, whether a statement or a document can be taken on face value to be true or false by the person examining that evidence. Those whose duty it is to provide impartial evidence on a regular basis, i.e. the law enforcers, have made it into a business, their findings mostly depending directly upon the quantum of money paid into their pockets, there being honourable exceptions, of course.
How many of those brought before the Accountability Courts for various reasons have accepted that they have indulged in nepotism and/or corruption of some sort? Indeed some of them have plea-bargained their way out of jail i.e. come to an agreement to pay that much money that will satisfy the NAB Chairman to give the “donor” relief from incarceration. In obtaining a reluctant (but relevant) “confession” the accused tacitly accepts his (or her) guilt, but can one condone the falsehood that the person rendered under oath before he (or she) saw the “light”? Should that not be a separate charge against the person that he (or she) is lying under oath? Or should we accept that all this is a one big game and that it is legal to give false evidence or bear false witness as long as one does not get caught?
Perjury
A few weeks ago I sat and watched in increasing frustration and disgust as two executives of a semi-government corporation lied through their teeth while giving evidence under oath. Almost every sentence of their affidavits was a lie, answers to every question was a blatant untruth. Even though this was before one of the best judges ever produced by the judiciary in Pakistan, one could see why the judiciary seems to have become helpless to prevent perjury. The case being sub-judice, one cannot ethically take names, however one can understand the reason why accountability is so difficult in a country where almost all statements or cross-examinations under oath are badly tainted. For personal gain, whether monetary or otherwise, false representation of facts and distortions, a gentlemanly phrase for “outright lies”, is the order of the day. Vested interest wants to keep the real facts concealed, invariably it is they who volunteer to become witnesses in any enquiry or trial. They manage to disfigure the truth in so brazenfaced and bold a manner that law enforcers do not have the courage to intercede and take action against them. That is why corruption has flourished, these old hands creating a wall of lies, impossible for the investigators to penetrate. The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) is up against it in their search for those who have looted the wealth of this nation, whether from government departments or government or semi-government corporations, etc. To quote Shakespeare in Romeo and Juliet, “at lover’s perjuries, they say even Jove laughs”. That may be the prerogative of lovers in a romance, in the real-life of a nation on its economic knees false evidence under oath is an incurable cancer that eats at the heart of our society, the deriving of individual benefit at the cost of the national exchequer, a worthwhile pasttime frustrating pursuit of the concept of collective gain. The Oxford Dictionary very correctly gives the meaning of perjury as “an act of wilfully telling an untruth when on oath”, and goes on to use the words, “lying, mendacity, mendaciousness, falsification, deception, untruthfulness, dishonesty, duplicity”. In simple terms, a perjurer is a criminal.
In most countries, perjury carries exemplary punishment, ruthless enough for people to try and avoid giving a statement under oath lest that statement (or part thereof) be detected to be false. The system is so credible that depositions under oath save the time of the courts in long-drawn out examination of witnesses. Automatic and severe punishment acts as a deterrent of sorts, a search of the legal history all over the developed world will show that because of repeated convictions due to perjury, the drop in corruption has been commensurate with that of perjury. The situation is readymade for malfeasance as in Pakistan today where every enquiry, every investigation, every trial, every arbitration, reeks of rampant falsification with absolute impunity, whether it is statements before the Oath Commissioner, particularly in the matter of real estate, as paid (or motivated) witnesses in any trial before the court etc. Part of the problem is that the judiciary acts only on the evidence on record, giving judgment on the basis of the statute books without relevance to the integrity of the evidence being presented before them. In a jury system the judge controls the courtroom keeping the flow of facts reasonably credible, giving rulings based on the law books and precedence, giving directions to the jury as a summary of the evidence presented. The twelve jurists on the panel then consult among themselves before arriving on a finding, Whereas it is quite possible to give false evidence, the body language of the witness while giving answers to questions as seen by 12 pairs of eyes makes it that much more difficult. The literacy level being low in Pakistan, the jury system is not considered a feasible proposition, somewhat of a strange stance in face of the age-old concept of the Panchayat.