MPs don�t consider themselves answerable to people: LHC CJ

LAHORE: Lahore High Court Chief Justice Sheikh Azmat Saeed said on Friday that the elected representatives did not consider themselves answerable to the people because they had failed to change the mindset inherited from the British rule wherein elected representatives were only accountable to the executive.

He stated that the state and its institutions should command respect and loyalty of its people for their survival and exist to serve the people and preserve their rights and interests. He was addressing the opening day of a two-day conference ñ “Testing Times: reflections on Present and Future” ñ organized by the Institute of Chartered Accountants for Pakistan (ICAP) on its golden jubilee here at a local hotel.

ICAP president Rashid Rahman Mir, Clive Parritt-FCA, president Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, Hafiz Mohammad Yousaf and a large number of ICAP students and its ex-representatives were also present. The golden jubilee celebrations will continue on Saturday (today).

The LHC chief justice said one pillar of the state had realized its true role but the other organs of the state were finding it difficult to keep up. Perhaps, he added, they were not prepared to give up their privileges and shed old habits.

He said the mess we saw was the dust raised by the winds of change and what we all had to do was to be on the right side of the history. The CJ said the most significant feature of the moment was that people of Pakistan had realized that the state and systems existed for their benefit and the people were now asserting the right of ownership on them.

After decades of passive fatalistic acceptance of institutionalized injustice, he said, the people of Pakistan were threatening to challenge all the entrenched norms both inside the courts and upon the streets, terming it ferocious to cloud the issues through meaningless rhetoric and resurrection of non-issues ferocious.

He said that every effort was being made by vested interest to avoid answering the question raised, terming the times Pakistan was passing through testing, he added.

He said that the present day judicial system was transplanted in South Asia from across the seas by the British and while it catered for an effective and efficient resolution of disputes between the natives it did not offer much protection to citizens against the legislative and executive powers of the state, as the inhabitants, in fact, were not citizens but subjects. He said that the power to strike down legislative instruments or set aside executive action in violation of fundamental rights was kept at its barest minimum. He termed it unfortunate that, even after independence, the mindsets of the judiciary had not changed and decision after decision were handed out validating illegitimate actions at the expense of the people of Pakistan.

The LHC CJ said the sorry state of affairs continued for almost six decades at a very high cost. He said that judiciary had found itself unable or unwilling to protect the rights of the people again and again. However, slowly, through constant soul searching and generational shift, the realization set in that all organs of the state, especially the judiciary, existed for the benefit of the people who were the true and the real owners of the legal system, he said. The system, he added, was there to protect the people against excesses and highhandedness.

Encouraged by the assertion of independence by judiciary for the benefit of the citizens, a small spark of hope was kindled but when an attempt was made to reverse the gains, this small spark had turned into a prairie fire in 2007-08.

The chief justice said not just how a government came to power is important but it was also equally significant what it did thereafter ñ more particularly how it governed its people. He said if we were to compare Hitler’s Germany, Churchill’s England, or for that matter Mussolini’s Italy and Roosevelt’s America in the 1940s, the most obvious difference was the absence of a free press and an independent judiciary in the former. He said that a country where the press was muzzled and the judiciary enslaved, the system was fascist, not democratic. In such countries, he maintained, inhabitants were deluded of human liberty and dignity and deprived of basic fundamental rights.

He said if the legislature enacted a law which deprived a citizen of his right to life or property, the recourse was through the judicial review of challenging such statute in the courts. He said that the judicial review of legislative power was both recognized and ancient. He said that the power of judicial review was recognized in all civilized countries, including Pakistan, in the Constitution.

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Supreme Court To Consider FCC Indecency Case

The audio of this story, as did a previous Web version, incorrectly says that the Supreme Court ruling regarding prime-time language was in 1975. It was actually in 1978.

Enlarge Joe Cavaretta/AP

Singer Cher accepts a lifetime achievement award at the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas during the Billboard Music Awards show in 2002. Her use of an obscenity in her acceptance speech led the FCC to fine broadcaster Fox.

Joe Cavaretta/AP Singer Cher accepts a lifetime achievement award at the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas during the Billboard Music Awards show in 2002. Her use of an obscenity in her acceptance speech led the FCC to fine broadcaster Fox.

Dirty words return to the usually staid Supreme Court Tuesday. For a second time in three years, the justices are hearing arguments about a Federal Communications Commission regulation adopted during the Bush administration that allows the agency to punish broadcasters with stiff fines for the fleeting use of vulgar language.

In 1978, the Supreme Court ruled that broadcasters could be punished for airing sexual and excretory expletives during prime time when children are more likely to be watching. But that was then and this is now. Then, a handful of TV networks were the sole purveyors of TV fare, and now there are hundreds of TV channels.

Today's case involves yet another change. Even after the Supreme Court's 1978 ruling, the FCC regulated with a relatively light hand, punishing only repeated use of vulgar language.

Background

Then in 2003, singer Bono used the F-word at the Golden Globe Awards ceremony in expressing how delighted he was to win. That was apparently the straw that broke the Bush administration's back, and the FCC adopted a new, more punitive approach. It started fining broadcasters for even fleeting and isolated use of vulgar language.

The test case was the Billboard Awards broadcast a year earlier by Fox. Singer Cher accepted her prize by saying, "I've also had critics for the last 40 years saying that I was on my way out every year. So f- - - 'em."

The FCC cited Fox for indecency, and the network went to court, claiming unconstitutional punishment of speech and a violation of the laws governing how agency rules are made. When the Supreme Court ruled on the case in 2009, the court voted 5 to 4 to uphold the penalty, basing its decision on administrative law. But the justices ducked the censorship issue, specifically reserving it for another day.

That day has now come. The case is back before the court after a federal appeals court in New York said the lines drawn by the FCC cannot be justified in today's multichannel world, and that the rule amounts to discrimination based on the content of the speech. The Obama administration appealed that ruling, leading to Tuesday's arguments, which very likely will mirror parts of the arguments two years ago.

Previous Court Decision

Last time, for instance, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg noted that the FCC had not fined the networks for airing Saving Private Ryan, even though the movie is filled with expletives, but a PBS documentary about jazz was punished because some of the musicians interviewed used expletives.

"One of the problems," said Ginsburg, "is that, seeing [the rule] in operation, there seems to be no rhyme or reason for some of the decisions that the commission has made."

Chief Justice John Roberts observed that under the commission's rule, it could punish the network for airing Cher's comment during the live broadcast, but it would not punish the network for reporting her comment on the morning news. He also questioned the efficacy of the FCC rule in a multimedia era.

But the Bush administration's solicitor general, Greg Garre, replied that under the court's precedents, broadcasting is unlike other media outlets and subject to a different standard.

Justice John Paul Stevens, who wrote the 1975 precedent, interjected at that point. "Wasn't the rationale for the lesser standard largely the scarcity of the frequencies?" he asked.

Context Matters

Then-Solicitor General Garre responded, "Broadcast TV is, as Congress designed that to be, the one place where Americans can turn on the TV at 8 o'clock and watch their dinner and not be expected to be bombarded with indecent language."

It would be a remarkable thing, he said, to adopt the world that the networks are asking for, "where the networks are free to use expletives ... 24 hours a day, going from the extreme example of Big Bird dropping the F-bomb on Sesame Street, to the example of using that word during Jeopardy! or opening the episode of American Idol."

Carter Phillips, the lawyer who represented the broadcasters, got significant blowback from some of the court's conservatives. Chief Justice Roberts strongly suggested that context matters, especially when the viewers are children.

"It's one thing to use the word in, say, Saving Private Ryan, when your arm gets blown off," said the chief justice. "It's another thing to do it when you are standing up at an awards ceremony."

Phillips responded with incredulity. "You can't seriously believe that the average 9-year-old, first of all, [won't be] more horrified by the arm being blown off."

The chief justice replied that in the Cher case, the swearword is completely gratuitous, and in the Saving Private Ryan case, it is not.

A decision in the Fox indecency case is expected by summer.

View the original article here

Supreme Court To Consider FCC Indecency Case

Audio for this story from Morning Edition will be available at approx. 9:00 a.m. ET

January 10, 2012

Enlarge Joe Cavaretta/AP

Singer Cher accepts a lifetime achievement award at the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas during the Billboard Music Awards show in 2002. Her use of an obscenity in her acceptance speech led the FCC to fine broadcaster Fox.

Joe Cavaretta/AP Singer Cher accepts a lifetime achievement award at the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas during the Billboard Music Awards show in 2002. Her use of an obscenity in her acceptance speech led the FCC to fine broadcaster Fox.

Dirty words return to the usually staid Supreme Court Tuesday. For a second time in three years, the justices are hearing arguments about a Federal Communications Commission regulation adopted during the Bush administration that allows the agency to punish broadcasters with stiff fines for the fleeting use of vulgar language.

In 1975, the Supreme Court ruled that broadcasters could be punished for airing sexual and excretory expletives during prime time when children are more likely to be watching. But that was then and this is now. Then, a handful of TV networks were the sole purveyors of TV fare, and now there are hundreds of TV channels.

Today's case involves yet another change. Even after the Supreme Court's 1975 ruling, the FCC regulated with a relatively light hand, punishing only repeated use of vulgar language.

Background

Then in 2003, singer Bono used the F-word at the Golden Globe Awards ceremony in expressing how delighted he was to win. That was apparently the straw that broke the Bush administration's back, and the FCC adopted a new, more punitive approach. It started fining broadcasters for even fleeting and isolated use of vulgar language.

The test case was the Billboard Awards broadcast a year earlier by Fox. Singer Cher accepted her prize by saying, "I've also had critics for the last 40 years saying that I was on my way out every year. So f- - - 'em."

The FCC cited Fox for indecency, and the network went to court, claiming unconstitutional punishment of speech and a violation of the laws governing how agency rules are made. When the Supreme Court ruled on the case in 2009, the court voted 5 to 4 to uphold the penalty, basing its decision on administrative law. But the justices ducked the censorship issue, specifically reserving it for another day.

That day has now come. The case is back before the court after a federal appeals court in New York said the lines drawn by the FCC cannot be justified in today's multichannel world, and that the rule amounts to discrimination based on the content of the speech. The Obama administration appealed that ruling, leading to Tuesday's arguments, which very likely will mirror parts of the arguments two years ago.

Previous Court Decision

Last time, for instance, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg noted that the FCC had not fined the networks for airing Saving Private Ryan, even though the movie is filled with expletives, but a PBS documentary about jazz was punished because some of the musicians interviewed used expletives.

"One of the problems," said Ginsburg, "is that, seeing [the rule] in operation, there seems to be no rhyme or reason for some of the decisions that the commission has made."

Chief Justice John Roberts observed that under the commission's rule, it could punish the network for airing Cher's comment during the live broadcast, but it would not punish the network for reporting her comment on the morning news. He also questioned the efficacy of the FCC rule in a multimedia era.

But the Bush administration's solicitor general, Greg Garre, replied that under the court's precedents, broadcasting is unlike other media outlets and subject to a different standard.

Justice John Paul Stevens, who wrote the 1975 precedent, interjected at that point. "Wasn't the rationale for the lesser standard largely the scarcity of the frequencies?" he asked.

Context Matters

Then-Solicitor General Garre responded, "Broadcast TV is, as Congress designed that to be, the one place where Americans can turn on the TV at 8 o'clock and watch their dinner and not be expected to be bombarded with indecent language."

It would be a remarkable thing, he said, to adopt the world that the networks are asking for, "where the networks are free to use expletives ... 24 hours a day, going from the extreme example of Big Bird dropping the F-bomb on Sesame Street, to the example of using that word during Jeopardy! or opening the episode of American Idol."

Carter Phillips, the lawyer who represented the broadcasters, got significant blowback from some of the court's conservatives. Chief Justice Roberts strongly suggested that context matters, especially when the viewers are children.

"It's one thing to use the word in, say, Saving Private Ryan, when your arm gets blown off," said the chief justice. "It's another thing to do it when you are standing up at an awards ceremony."

Phillips responded with incredulity. "You can't seriously believe that the average 9-year-old, first of all, [won't be] more horrified by the arm being blown off."

The chief justice replied that in the Cher case, the swearword is completely gratuitous, and in the Saving Private Ryan case, it is not.

A decision in the Fox indecency case is expected by summer.

View the original article here