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TRIBUTE TO SHAHABUDDIN

Fare Well and Fare Forward
MR Justice Shahabud din. after having Mee red the nation to Its democratic goal, ha. relinquished hl. office and will •oon. may be tn a mailer of days, be resumed hl. original job of the Chief Justice lie wa. always anxious to return and knowing wail that there could be difficulties on the way, he had made M a condition for his assumption of office that the three alliances would see to It at the appropriate time and make It possible for him to return. The alliances have kept their word and by unanimously passing the 11 th amendment have removed the legal diffl culty of an ex-executive's return to his judicial position
All this has been done according to Justice Shahabuddin s own formula No other and no better alternative was ever seriously suggested, and there fore the matter rests there.
During the last few days In his office, the Acting President had to receive Chiefs of armed services and others who called on him as courtesy and protocol demanded and had to attend ceremonies In which farewell took the customary form of a ritual. These must have been occasions highly charged with emotion. On at least one such ceremonials, the Acting President looked visibly moved. Though usually a master of his emotions, Justice Shahabuddin Ahmed must have had moments during these days when he had to fight hard to keep his emotions under control.
He was the man of destiny during the past ten months and he must have been fully
aware of it. On his success or (allure hung the fate of the nation A lot more Important than his ability to return was his ability to dcbvir the goods A Chief Justice was himself on trial so to say. and he has acquitted htmself well. And this seems to be the consensus, here and abroad
Other chief justices before him who had been called upon to occupy the chair had a ilm lied responsibility They were not really responsible to the nation lor they had not been elected by the nation. They came Into office under very different circumstances and their tenure in office was always tn secure. There was always something pathetic about their departure as there was always something fortuitous, even theatricsd and ominous, about their Induction into office. Not much significance could be read either In their coming or In their going An entirely dif Cerent thing was the manner and the circumstances in which Justice Shahabuddin Ahmed came Into office with the mandate, virtually of the whole nation, to give some thing for the nation's delivery which the nation had lost. — democracy and a freely elected government. Others before him had no such mandate, nor had they the means to do any such thing, even if they wanted lo. How he was baffled and frustrated in his sincere at-
tempt lo do so. Justice Saycm In his confessional little book has barely suggested. And It doesn't took that he himself knew the full story.
While evaluating Justice Shahabuddin b performance as the Acting President, fortunate In many ways which his for bears were not. It will not do to minimise his problems He had many. The nature of these problems changed with the coming into office of a political government. In the first phase of his tenure he was able to act
as the President under a Presidential form of government. tn the second phase, though still remaining a President tn the same sense, we saw him withdrawing Into the background, leaving the stage largely lo his Prime Minister. and letting her play a rule somewhat beyond her constitutional size
Perhaps the difference can be put in lilts way : till the time the February elections were held, the Acting President felt himself, and himself atone, responsible for doing the supreme job assigned lo him. He had qucs-tto rad authority to du and he felt no qualms In e*. itng his authority. But the situation, especially In the early weeks, was volatile, to put it at the
mildest. lie had to face mounting pressures, either to do or not to do, certain things lie had to take into confidence the very forces that had been the support of the regime jusl toppled. The higher bureau cracy. as always. was chameleon like, changing colour with the change tn the background. Quite a lew of the top bureaucrats had been loo much identified with Ershad and fully shared his stigma How many of these alleged col laborators could be safely dis
pensed with, and in what way? Those who had been crying hoarse for a drastic operation, for a sweeping purge in the political fashion, arere disappointed. for the President refused to see his government as revolutionary one His constitutionalism and his legal background stood in the way. The advisory Council was a mixture of activists and moderates and ex-ctvll servants. His long, and routine, sessions with his Advisory Council had. presumably, their usefulness but he could afford to keep his last counsel to himself, especially tn dealing with some of the most delicate matters. It was this freedom and thia privilege which II must have been difTi cult to preserve once the poll I kcal governme nt took over
Perhaps rightly, the eminent that the Acting President formed Immediately after the February elections, that Is as soon as the final results were available, was done on the principle of the Parliamentary form of Government. This was not a necessity till such time as the constitutional amendment had become a fact, that is UB the passing of the 12th amend ment He thought it wise lo usher In the form of govern men I for which the nation had been clamouring, thereby Inviting upon himself the problem of having to play a well-night Impossible role.Thc problems of the first phase were replaced by a new set of problems, constitutional and administrative In 11^ nature In playing this role the Acting Prcskfc.nl had lo show bh patience and dexterity. a the strains were visible, mrd If there has been a pci ■ pdblc greying In his hair, the i casons can be guessed
The severest chalk nge that he must have been facing was the on to his avowed neutral Hy. which he was able to maintain in the first phase of his rule. I am far from suggesting that he was unable to do so in his second phase. All I am saying is that the question of neutrality took on new dimensions under the changed circumstances. A neutral and non-polltlcal President at the had of a fiercely and stridently
political government may sound an impossibility, a contradiction In terms. An added the difficulty arising from the contradiction; the President s total commitment to democracy. and to the idea of a democratically elected government running the show. The people were there . eager and impatient to run the show but the stage had not fully been ready the show could not be delayed any longer
Unfortunately for the Acting President, the glorious February elections was not the end of the story It had to be followed by two more exercise in the same field. — the by ck-ctions and finally the referendum The one was tarnished by the return, may be on a Hm tted scale. o( vtoknee and rigging. the other by a less than enthusiastic response of the voters. For neither of these could the Acting President be held responsible but he had the misfortune to witness the decline of people commitment
The nation has rejected the older form of Presidency and Is waiting anxiously lo see how the new form prospers. If the older form gave us one of the worst. M also us. tn the last Incumbent. In the person of justice Shahabuddin Ahmed, one of the beat of Presidents The credit, of course, goes not lo the form but to the person. Fare well Mr. President, fare forward Mr . Chief Justice
The author is former Education Advleer. to the Pretident of the ereturhUe caretaker government