The darker side

As people of Pakistan anxiously await the result of the government reference against the Chief Justice of Pakistan, a darker side of the manoeuvre has come to light, which strongly suggests that not only the case against the top judge was prepared in great haste but a crude attempt was also made to scandalise the judiciary.
On June 28, the government counsel had filed a Civil Miscellaneous Application (CMA), which came before the Full Bench on Monday. CJP's senior lawyer Aitzaz Ahsan disputed its contents protesting that these contained naked abuses against the judges, and violated their privacy with the help of photographs and other objectionable material - all provided by un-named sources.
The government's principal counsel expressed ignorance about the authorship of the CMA and pleaded for withdrawal, which was accepted. But before doing that the Full Court passed a set of orders which essentially outlawed the presence of secret agencies from the premises of superior courts and prescribed penalties for the over-enthusiastic government legal advisors.
The 13-para judicial order brings out clearly that the CMA was prepared in the Law Ministry under the overall supervision of the Law Secretary. Two of the documents in the CMA, marked as SECRET, "appear to be intended to scandalise and malign certain Hon'ble Judges of this Court who are not even party to this petition". Even Syed Sharifuddin Pirzada, the senior most counsel of the government, denied any knowledge of these papers.
A similar stand was taken by the Attorney General of Pakistan. The way the advocate-on-record made these documents part of the CMA is no less than a cloak and dagger act. The Law Secretary who appeared to be the main motivator of this drama has been issued a show cause why proceedings should not be initiated against him in the matter. Role of agencies was another issue that came up for the court's order.
The court had so far ignored the CJP counsel's recurrent complaint that government spies were "swarming" the court and were "prying" into the judges' private affairs. But after seeing these additional documents it felt that no unauthorised person should be allowed to come into the court rooms, nor should they be shown any record. The Full Court ordered the director general of Intelligence Bureau that within a week he should submit a personal affidavit that all the courts and residences of judges have been de-bugged.
Although technically the reference against the Chief Justice of Pakistan was prepared by the government under the guidance of Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, it was sent to the Supreme Judicial Council by the President. That is the law. However, in public perception it is the President's move against Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry. Given that the two sides in the case represent the highest echelons in the state structure, one would have expected that the reference case, from the standpoints of both procedure and substance, would have been prepared with utmost care.
But that does not seem to be the case. That the presidential reference should abound with so much of indefensible material, provided by un-named sources, leaves one with the impression that the leadership has lost its compass and is being led along the garden path by someone who has a personal agenda. It is time that the government should review its position by putting aside its misplaced hubris and try bringing this clash to a close. Enough is enough.