It is commonly said that justice must be seen to be done. India’s legal system has always played an honorable, if often very tardy role, with a judiciary that has by and large maintained its independence both from political interference and popular prejudice. Now with the trial of a suspected Pakistani terrorist along with two alleged Indian accomplices, who spied out targets for last year’s wicked Mumbai attacks, it is facing a considerable test.

The case against Mohammed Ajmal Amir Qasab, the only surviving alleged attacker on the Taj Mahal hotel may seem watertight; after all, he was recorded on security cameras, armed with a Kalashnikov and apparently laughing as the assault began. But the principle of India’s British-based legal system is that a man is innocent until proven guilty. That act of proof must take place in a court of law. However obvious the evidence, it is crucial that it is heard and challenged by defense lawyers. It is this process of justice which sets India above the terrorists attacking it, whose pathetic and brutal arguments are made only by the bomb and the bullet.

Yet finding a lawyer prepared to defend Qasab is proving an embarrassment to the legal system. Yesterday the man’s court-appointed defender Ms. Anjali Waghmare was disqualified because of a conflict of interest. She had allegedly talked about defending a witness in the Qasab trial on another matter, something Ms. Waghmare has denied. However, she can hardly be too distraught at being taken off the case, since when she was appointed, she made little secret of how little she wanted the job. Her concerns about her personal safety were borne out when she subsequently received death threats. The authorities have yet to trace and arrest the bigots responsible for this intimidation and there is little expectation among Ms. Waghmare’s fellow lawyers that anyone will ever be brought to book.

Yet the plain fact is that however terrible the crimes in Mumbai last November in which 170 people were slain, Qasab and his co-accused must undergo trial in a calm and dispassionate manner. The last thing that can be allowed to happen is for lynch law to be applied. Unfortunately, none of India’s leading campaigning politicians for the election that has now begun had the courage to go out on a limb and defend Qasab’s rights under the law. None has chosen to tell the electorate to its face that those who believe the Pakistani deserves no trial, no defense but only death, are wrong.

Despite the considerable bravery of individual members of the security forces during the Mumbai attacks, it is clear that there were important command and intelligence failings among senior officers. The extent of those errors has yet to be fully revealed. But regardless of that outcome, India has a chance with the Mumbai terror trial to demonstrate that it has a robust legal system that can cope with a highly emotive and shocking case. For all their anger, ordinary Indians should realize that Indian justice is also being tested here.

Tough talk and frailty in N. Korea

Excerpts from an editorial in The Independent yesterday:

Ten days ago, amid much domestic fanfare and foreign trepidation, North Korea launched a rocket. Pyongyang said it was putting a communications satellite in orbit; the view elsewhere was that it was testing its capacity to launch a long-range missile. US observers said that, either way, the launch had failed — but the UN Security Council adopted a statement of condemnation anyway.

In an unusually swift response, North Korea has now ordered the IAEA inspectors out of the country. It has also threatened to walk out of the six-nation talks on ending its nuclear program and revive the reactor it had disabled in exchange for fuel aid. If it carries out its threat, Pyongyang will retreat into the isolation it so hesitantly emerged from two years ago.

Given North Korea’s recalcitrance, it would be understandable if the other parties to the six-nation talks decided simply to leave North Korea to its own devices — understandable, but wrong. There has long been a dissonance between what Pyongyang says, what it does, and what it means. Its rocket launch could be interpreted as a gesture of defiance or a demand for attention — but attention on its own terms.

The negotiations that led to the shutdown of the Yongbyon reactor in 2007 should be instructive. They were long and complicated; one step back for every two steps forward. And for every concession it made, North Korea ensured it received something — food, fuel or security guarantee — in return. In the end, though, the talks succeeded.

The signals Pyongyang wants to send are ones of strength. There is good reason, though, to interpret them as evidence of weakness. By responding, albeit angrily, to the UN condemnation, North Korea has shown that it is still listening. This is no time for the outside world to give up on its efforts at engagement; rather, as China said yesterday, it is a time for “calm and restraint” on all sides.