- Provocative remarks should have been avoided
Since the Musharraf treason case verdict was announced, in which he was sentenced to death, there has been a to and fro between the Pakistan Army and the judiciary with the PTI government in between the thick of things. The Army has categorically stated in its official reaction to the verdict that someone who is a highly decorated ex-Army man with a career spanning 40 years simply cannot be a traitor and that the decision of the special court has been taken in haste without due process. The PTI government, which is the prosecution in this case, is strangely enough taking the same stance with the Attorney General saying that Gen (retd) Pervez Musharraf had not been given a fair trial. The same day Gen Bajwa visited SSG HQ to express solidarity with General Musharraf. The Supreme Court, in a strong worded response rejected a narrative being built by certain sections of the media that the Chief Justice of Pakistan, Mr Justice Asif Saeed Khosa, had played a role in the conclusion of General Musharraf’s treason trial. As if this weren’t enough, in what can only be described as an excessively over-the-top and unnecessarily provocative statement, one of the judges who handed down a guilty verdict in the case directed law enforcement agencies to arrest the offender at once and “if found dead, his corpse be dragged to the D-Chowk, Islamabad, Pakistan and be hanged for three days”. There is no justification for the use of such strong language in any judgment, especially one that has already received a reaction such as the one from the Army and the government. There is a historical context to this: the rule, demise and exhumation of Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell in 1660, but that should not have been an inspiration for these words, given the sensitivity of the issues at hand in modern day Pakistan.
The conversation about an important judgment will now unfortunately revolve around the incendiary and avoidable comments made in the detailed judgment. What is more, it will further strain relations between two key institutions that have clashed in the past with disastrous effects for the country. The government has decided to file a reference against the judge in question, but it too should remain impartial rather than seen to be favouring a single institution. Ironically some of the bad blood happens to stem from a reference filed against a judge of the Supreme Court earlier in the year.
