Mr Justice Qazi Faez Isa has explained his presence at the National Constitutional Convention to mark the Golden Jubilee of the passage of the Constitution by saying that he was not aware that there would be political speeches. This is disingenuous, to say the least, because it was not to be expected that a gathering of politicians would be addressed by politicians, and that politics would not come up was not reasonable. Further, Mr Justice Isa does not seem to have taken into account the fact that he was going to address a gathering of the parliamentarians who had passed a resolution against a judgement of the Supreme Court, and thus apparently had taken the same stance as himself. What he said that the function was unobjectioable, even anodyne. For a judge of the Supreme Court, with legitimate expectancy of becoming the next Chief Justice of Pakistan, to say an event that the Court stands with the Constitution should not cause any problems, but Mr Justice Isa’s presence isbeing ascribed all sorts of motives. As the resolution involved his judgement in the Hifze Quran suo motu notice case, he perhaps should have avoided the gathering because he was involved. He should have smelled a rat when he found that the CJP, Mr Justice Umar Ata Bandial, was not attending. He had also not been tasked with leading a Supreme Court delegation, which his seniority eminently qualfied him to have done.
While Mr Justice Isa’s remarks rang ourt, they could not conceal the fact that not only was the Supreme Court on a collision course with Parliament over the issue of elections to the dissolved Punjab and KP Assemblies, but its judges were at odds with one another over the exercise of the Court’s Suo motu jurisdiction. The CJP holds that it is his discretionary right, several judges (including Mr Justice Faez Isa) hold that this is to exercised collegially, by the Court as a whole.Mr Justice Isa and Mr Justice Bandial may have come to some understanding, so modus vivendi, in their meeting on Tuesday, which took place in the CJP’ chambers before iftar on Tuesday. The PTI has refused to hold dialogue with other parties because it considers them ‘thieves and dacoits’. It is to be presumed that such an assumption does not exist among their lordships,and will not come in the way of a dialogue that is the only way out of the current crisis.
