Editorial
Truth Commission question
Welcome decision to re-examine the draft
The reported move by the Council of Advisers to send the draft of the proposed Voluntary Disclosure Ordinance 2008 back to the law ministry for re-examination should be yielding a carefully redrafted proposal. As we pointed out in these columns a few days ago, the proposed measure contain quite a few loopholes that need to be filled in. There are, as it were, some questions which the provisions of the draft ordinance have given rise to and these must be answered to the satisfaction of the people of the country. If at all there has to be an Accountability and Truth Commission, it is important that it have enough credibility to convince the nation that meaningful good will come of it.
Now, as matters stand, the proposed ordinance, which is geared to the setting up of the commission, would have people accused of financial corruption confess to their crimes, surrender their illegally acquired wealth to the state and thereby save themselves from prosecution and possible imprisonment. Such a measure, ever since it was first aired by the authorities, has naturally raised eyebrows in the public arena. That is again understandable, given that while on the one hand there has been insistent talk of the rule of law, on the other there seems to be a move to have a section of corrupt people skirt around the law and buy their way out of prosecution. It is this duality that has aroused public concern; and because it has, we have been commenting on it. The terms of reference of the proposed Accountability and Truth Commission, as noted in the draft, leave much to be desired. There are the points we talked about earlier regarding certain and somewhat contradictory sections of the draft ordinance. At the same time, public concern is there regarding the duration of the commission (in all, six months). How much the commission will be able to achieve in this brief period and what happens beyond that period, when an elected government is in office again, is a question exercising public minds.
It is our expectation that the law ministry or for that matter the government will adopt a position that will strike a balance between the supremacy of the legal process and the need for relieving the judiciary of any excessive burden of cases of this category.
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