If anything, Third World governments – including Arab states – don’t brag about the independence of their judicial systems. Everyone knows that judges may be appointed or dismissed at will by the political leadership and that “justice for all” is nothing more than an empty slogan. The good thing, at least, is that people have learned to live with it. They know that political power, not the judicial system, determines justice.

It is a well-known fact that the judicial system exists to protect the politically powerful and the rich. Members of ruling elites and their families never face trial; they are simply above the law. A political figure only faces justice when he crosses over to the wrong side of the political fence. Zimbabwe’s Morgan Tsvangirai and Egyptian Ayman Nour, leader of the Al-Ghad party, are good examples.

Justice in Third World countries protects Westerners more than it protects local citizens. In Saudi Arabia, poor Pakistanis, Nigerians, Sri Lankans, Somalis and Arabs have been beheaded for drug trafficking and other alleged crimes, as recently as last month. But such harsh judgments are never administered to citizens of powerful Western countries. Whenever a court passes a sentence against a Western national, the political leadership orders the individual released. The same is true of other Arab states as well.

So when President Musharraf behaves in such dictatorial fashion, he knows that he belongs to a privileged club – with almost every other world leader.

If such shabby justice is expected from the Third World, I wonder what one ought to think of American justice, particularly in the light of Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and America’s alleged secret detention centers in European countries. Since when have extra-judicial trials and Soviet-style Gulags become acceptable to the independent American judicial system? I have always wondered how American judges could be truly independent when they are appointed based on their political affiliations.

It also seems ironic that we demonize President Musharraf, a man who is trying to make a system out of chaos, while British Prime Minister Tony Blair walks away almost unscathed after his government dropped a corruption probe into a Saudi arms deal, in an abominable obstruction of justice.

It is always the nakedness of the poor that the world sees, but no one cares when the kings walk nude.