Politics is meant for politicians. When serving judges jump into the political arena, they get flabbergasted and embarrassed at one issue or the other, as has been happening with the “like-minded bench” of the Supreme Court.
Coined by court reporters, the title “like-minded bench” has reduced the Supreme Court from a judicial authority meant for dispensing impartial decisions to a political authority meant for delivering politically biased verdicts. The title is reflective of the kind of arrangement the Chief Justice makes to bring about a decision. In fact, the title embodies the erosion of the judicious sense of the Supreme Court.
In a way, the title “like-minded bench” offers a prognosis about a case at hand. Instead of groping in the dark, one becomes more than half certain about the likely outcome. The bench also remains busy in setting new precedents– though some of which are irreproducible and irreplicable– falling outside the ambit of the Court, as defined by the Constitution. In a way, the bench is out on a spree to write a new constitution when and where possible. This practice has made the Parliament jealous of, rather challenged by, the fast expanding scope of the Court. This is why the Parliament has decided to halt the march of the Court on the constitutional domain.
Where the “like-minded bench” has gone into overdrive is that it is still supported by the Army. To elaborate, the bench survives in the fallacy that the Army is supposed to reciprocate the favours which had shaped their mutual past. In that bygone golden era, the bench was potent enough to trespass on the purview of any body of the state with impunity– which was never challenged. Persistent trampling over the territory, constitutionally meant for others, made the “like-minded bench” a habitual trespasser, oblivious of the feelings of the sufferers. Enough is enough has been the call reverberating in Parliament and the Election Commission alike. Both have plucked up the courage to halt any further transgression. Nevertheless, in this equation, not only the “like-minded bench”, but also the Court, is about to bear the brunt.
Whereas the Parliament is now asking the Supreme Court– precisely, the “like-minded bench” – to give a presentation before it on one issue or the other, the ECP is asking the bench to eat its words and correct the course in light of the Constitution. In other words, the Supreme Court has found two competitors who are determined to guard their respective territories and deny any entry. Moreover, in the hands of the two competitors, the whole Supreme Court stands challenged. This point is worrisome for those judges who are not part of the “like-minded bench”. Once challenged is always challenged. In a way, the bench has brought the Court to such a pass that its assertions are being defined and its extensions are being questioned. The two competitors are out to delimit the Court in light of the constitution.
When the constitution is a criterion, there are not many people (in general public) who are ready to side with the SC or who are willing to oppose its two competitors. The Army tries to play neutral– to save its own skin– given the mayhem its recently retired leadership produced in politics. Some parliamentarians are also asking for calling the two main army generals to the Parliament for messing around with politics in the past.
Like never before the Court is being criticized and humiliated daily with all ruthlessness unimpeded. Does the “like-minded bench” not know the reason for the same? Why are there fewer voices to support the bench? A large part of the media is silent on the insults heaped on the bench directly and the Court indirectly. Now, from almost all corners of society (except one political party), the message is not implicit, it is explicit.
Pakistan has faced economic consequences of their messing around. Pertinently, a renowned journalist Absar Alam asserts that army generals are a salaried class answerable to the people and their representatives sitting in the parliament. At this juncture, news is coming from India which has resorted to dismantling the colonial arrangement of cantonments by retrieving public land from the possession of the Indian army and by reducing cantonments to mere military stations. The retrieved land would be managed by municipal corporations run by civilians.
What is hidden in the voice of Absar Alam is the voice of journalists who bore oppression and suppression inflicted by the then leadership of the Army. The recent past witnessed not only the highhandedness of the Supreme Court towards certain parliamentarians (and politicians) but also the overbearing of the Army towards certain journalists. On the one hand, the Supreme Court was delivering biassed decisions against a set of politicians to ensure their exclusion to make space for some chosen ones; on the other hand, the Army (and the agencies) was instrumental in picking up and torturing journalists who had been raising a voice against the conceit of the Supreme Court. That is, the then leadership of the Army was protecting the leadership of the Court. The relationship was hand in glove with each other– close collusion. Now, the Army has departed from the Supreme Court, leaving the latter to its own devices.
The departure of the Army was not smooth; it was rough in the sense that, in a press conference, its representatives experienced hyperhidrosis– excessive face sweating– while explaining their positions, regretting the past and exonerating the name of their institution from the murder allegation of a journalist, Arshad Sharif.
The departure of the slain journalist was a climax in the standoff between the Army (or its associated spy agency) and journalists. The Army decided not to afford further antagonism and consequent societal seclusion. The Army was wise enough to withdraw to its original fold, defence. The Supreme Court, however, has been left to fight a losing battle.
Like never before the Court is being criticized and humiliated daily with all ruthlessness unimpeded. Does the “like-minded bench” not know the reason for the same? Why are there fewer voices to support the bench? A large part of the media is silent on the insults heaped on the bench directly and the Court indirectly. Now, from almost all corners of society (except one political party), the message is not implicit, it is explicit.
The message is that “like-minded bench” and its decisions are not acceptable. The bench, and by extension the Court, has to stay within prescribed limits, as enshrined in the Constitution. The laid down limit showers respect on the Court, as hardly is there anyone around who is now fearful of the “like-minded bench”, another salaried class, and by extension, the Court.
