Climate change is upon us, if the unremitting monsoon deluge that has drowned almost the entire country is any indication. Balochistan, the poorest province of Pakistan, appears hardest hit by the natural calamity. Our track record indicates that we seem condemned to repeat the folly of never preparing for impending natural disasters even if they have been repeatedly predicted.
Even in normal monsoon years, vast parts of the country are flooded. The condition of drainage in our cities and towns, hardly a secret, reasserts itself with a vengeance when the heavens open up. Cities and towns then appear to be lakes and rivers, not urban dwelling areas. Admittedly this year’s monsoon has broken all records. If we are unable to handle normal monsoons, how can we deal with such a massive deluge?
Governments, federal and provincial, trot out their usual modus operandi in such situations. These include aerial surveys by the heads of government and the occasional ground landing to offer platitudes of help, all of which remains a mere drop in the ocean.
The victims of such disasters are soon forgotten and left to their own devices to fend for themselves and make do however they can, adding to the sum of misery, poverty and deprivation that defines life for the vast majority in our so-called Islamic Republic.
The heavens, it seems, are not the only source of our current disasters. The ongoing political confrontation between Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and the coalition government of Prime Minister (PM) Shehbaz Sharif precludes any political stability in the foreseeable future.
Parliament is paralysed and less than credible after the former PM Imran Khan, removed from power through a no-confidence motion, opted to instruct his MNAs to boycott and resign from the National Assembly (the latter decision now prompting new Speaker Raja Pervaiz Ashraf to embark upon accepting these resignations in ‘piecemeal’ fashion, starting with 11 so far).
Punjab has gone through extraordinary political convolutions in the last few months, ending finally in Chaudhry Pervez Elahi being anointed as Chief Minister (CM) of the most powerful province. Along the way, the Supreme Court (SC) has been dragged into politics once again and the three-member bench headed by the Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Umar Ata Bandial, has acted in a strange fashion.
It is an old and venerated convention of judicial systems that if one party expresses a lack of confidence in a judge or a particular bench, the judge or bench in question recuses himself or themselves.
Having rejected the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and sundry leading Bar Associations’ request for a full court or at least a larger bench to hear the case against Punjab Assembly Deputy Speaker Dost Muhammad Mazari’s rejection of 10 Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid’s (PML-Q’s) votes on the basis of party head Chaudhry Shujaat’s letter instructing these MPAs not to vote for Chaudhry Pervez Elahi as Imran Khan’s candidate, the SC bench, far from recusing itself, insisted on proceeding with the hearing.
The stance of the SC bench resulted in the PML-N and Bar Associations’ counsel recusing themselves instead (through a boycott of the proceedings)! Not a particularly enervating addition to the superior judiciary’s record.
The insistence on a full court or larger bench rested on two contentions. One, this particular bench was perceived to be inclined to favour Imran Khan and deliver a verdict against the PML-N, i.e., one party to the case expressed its lack of confidence in the bench.
Two, the seemingly contradictory verdict delivered by the SC in its May 17, 2022 verdict in the presidential reference regarding Article 63A(1)(b), where it upheld Imran Khan’s desire to have the votes of 20 PTI defectors in the Punjab Assembly disregarded, and its July 22, 2022 verdict against Deputy Speaker Dost Muhammad Mazari’s rejection of 10 PML-Q MPAs’ votes as contradictory to the party head’s instructions, needed to be reconciled in the interests of consistency and a clear interpretation of the constitutional Article in question.
The fact that both (contradictory) verdicts seemed to benefit Imran Khan has led to charges of bias floating on the surface of the two verdicts. Again, not a very enervating outcome for the respect and dignity of the SC.
As if all this were not enough, the Judicial Commission of Pakistan (JCP) meeting called inexplicably during senior puisne judge Justice Qazi Faez Isa and Attorney General of Pakistan Ashtar Ausaf Ali’s absence abroad raised quite a few eyebrows.
The five candidates from the high courts suggested by the CJP for elevation to the SC did not find favour with the majority of the JCP meeting, either on grounds of their not being the senior most or inadequate information being available to judge their merit.
From media reports, the JCP meeting ended abruptly and acrimoniously when the CJP and some other judges suddenly closed the meeting and left, even before some participants had had their full say! Not very enervating for the respect and dignity of the superior judiciary.
What has been outlined above regarding the superior judiciary and its recent record underlines the perils of the judicialisation of politics, which arguably by now has led to the politicisation of the judiciary, as feared.
The damage is to the credibility, respect and dignity of the institution of the judiciary. Wiser counsel is the need of the hour, both in terms of the judicial process as well as the polarised, conflictual state of politics, which threatens further economic pain.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022
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