- Can the PTI form the consensus required?
It was perhaps one of the easier decisions and processes, being the Prime Minister’s prerogative alone, and thus requiring no consultation with the opposition or allied parties, when it came to Chief of Army Staff (COAS) Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa’s extension. That assumption was dealt a severe blow by the Supreme Court (SC) that was afforded an opportunity to look into the procedure of extending a COAS’s tenure to find that the rules for this practice were at best, arbitrary. In its detailed judgment, which was preceded by a short order, the SC, showing “judicial restraint” allowed General Bajwa an additional six months during which time the PTI government must pass “appropriate legislation” to “regulate the tenure and terms of service of a general and as a consequence the COAS” that should provide “certainty and predictability” to the post of COAS “for all times to come”. This would require an act of Parliament to be passed in both Houses within the stipulated time period rather than an amendment to the Constitution as there is no requirement to redefine, separately, the role of the COAS. The PTI government will require a simple majority in the National Assembly and would therefore only need the support of its allied parties in the Lower House; however first it will also have to get the legislation passed in the Senate which is controlled by opposition parties that the ruling government vehemently despises and refuses to acknowledge as a necessary stakeholder in lawmaking, or anything else for that matter.
But with pressure from the judiciary on one side and from the Army on the other, Prime Minister Imran Khan doesn’t have any choice but to shake hands with his perceived enemies. Chief Justice of Pakistan, Mr Justice Asif Saeed Khosa’s note in the judgment, in his usual fashion, ends with a quote, this time from Chief Justice Sir Edward Coke of England in the Commendam case in the year 1616 regarding the powers of King James I, “Howsoever high you may be; the law is above you”. In light of the current environment of political uncertainty, the constant shifting of the power balance and highhandedness of multiple institutions, the CJP’s words and the SC’s judgment becomes all the more meaningful.
