EDITORIAL: It’s been an open secret, but nobody expected it to be revealed in this way. In a letter addressed to the Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Qazi Faez Isa, six honourable judges of the Islamabad High Court (more than 80 percent of its strength) have spoken out against alleged interference and intimidation by “operatives of the ISI” to influence the outcome of “cases of interest.” The letter also mentions that the matter was brought to the notice of the IHC Chief Justice as well as the then CJP.
And that the former told them that he had spoken to the DG-ISI and had been assured that no official from ISI will approach the complainants. But the “interference on the part of intelligence operatives” continued even after that assurance. The situation got so stressful that one of the judges had to be admitted to hospital with high blood pressure. Furthermore, says the letter, in one May 2023 instance an IHC inspection judge reported to the chief justice that crackers were lobbed into the house of an additional district and sessions judge.
Some in the government along with usual suspects have tried to make light of the letter, while the PTI, this time bearing the brunt of ‘brazen’ interventions, has gleefully welcomed it. But the matter is far too important and beyond political considerations. It is about two connected issues: independence of the judiciary and rule of law. Yet over the years, many of those entrusted with delivering justice erred due to weakness of character or willingness to side with powerful players for personal gains. The late Nasim Hasan Shah, one of the apex court judges who sent the ousted prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto to the gallows and later rose to be the CJP, in a post-retirement TV interview admitted that he had voted for the death penalty “under pressure” [from the then military dictator Gen Ziaul Haq]. Politicians are not clean either in this regard. In an old audio circulating on the Internet, accountably czar of the then PML (N) government Saifur Rehman, can still be heard telling the late Justice Malik Mohammad Qayyum of the Lahore High Court in a phone call to “give a full dose” to Benazir Bhutto and her spouse in a case pending before him; to which the latter happily agreed. The exposure, though, led to the judge’s resignation, but neither the caller nor his boss faced any consequences. One or other actors have kept employing that nasty practice to achieve the desired results. To state the obvious, absence of the rule of law means denial of justice to the people. It is also a big reason why foreign investors shy away from this country.
CJP Isa convened a full court meeting on Wednesday to hold deliberations on the contents of the judges’ letter, which was carried forward to the next day. Meanwhile, the Bench and the Bar being the two wheels of the chariot of justice, the Pakistan Bar Council and Supreme Court Bar Association issued statements emphasising the need to address the issues raised in the letter. And for whatever purpose Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif decided to call on the CJP, who has been saddled with the responsibility to erase the question mark hanging over independence of the judiciary.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2024
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