A Dishonorable Judge
By Syed Kamran Hashmi
Westfield, Indiana
Not many people knew of him before 2007. Appointed as a Judge in the Lahore High Court (LHC) by Mian brothers in 1998, Justice Muhammad Sharif had kept a low profile, a strategy that persuaded most people to forget about his close association with the Pakistan Muslim League (PMLN) or to ignore it as innocuous altogether. But, during the lawyers movement, he broke the shell and his name started getting recognition as the supporter of the former Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry and a critic of Martial law.
In March 2007, General Musharraf, the then Chief of the Army Staff (COAS) had suspended the CJP, after sending a reference against him to the Supreme Judicial Council. Protesting both against the charges and his suspension, Justice Chaudhry set about a nationwide campaign in favor of the implementation of the true spirit of the Constitution along with his own reinstatement. Considering it as a silver lining, many judges of the Higher Courts -including Justice Sharif - joined the ‘rebellion.’ Some of them dug their feet even deeper in defiance and started publicly attending the rallies in his support. Weeks later, on July 20th 2007, a large Supreme Court Panel led by Justice Khalil ur Rehman Ramday ruled against his suspension and restored Mr. Chaudhry as the top Judge again. That decision, deemed as an unprecedented victory for a civilian, fired up the whole nation. People across Pakistan swarmed the streets, enthralled and elated, dancing on the beats of drum, beaming with a sense of achievement, celebrating as if they had won the cricket world cup once again.
However, their euphoria melted away soon. In November 2007, the fearful General Musharraf suspended the constitution imposing a mini martial law, the second time in less than ten years. He could not let an independent Supreme Court decide about the eligibility of an Army General to run for the presidential election. How could he? Besides that, he also illegally detained many of the judges in their homes, including the CJP along with his wife and children. This time he did not forget Justice Sharif to be included in the list.
I saw him for the first time on television in an interview shown by one of the private news channels on the following day of the proclamation of the (so-called) emergency. Since many news channels were also banned in the martial law to broadcast their transmissions, I assume many Pakistanis might have missed the clip. Anyway, I remember Mr Sharif sitting on a chair in his house, shocked and incapacitated, as if he was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Tears rolling down his eyes, his words sounding as a mumble of a dying old man, he asked the journalist a rhetorical question: “What crime did we commit except to try to protect the constitution?” Disappointed by the General’s decision to put them under house arrest, he asked, “We are not criminals, then why are we being treated as ones?” What impressed me that day was his sincerity and selflessness, that he was not suffering to forward personal interest, instead he was enduring this trauma for the betterment of the country, a nation that was eventually waking up to fight back. For those who watched him sobbing, he became a national hero, a celebrity in the lawyers community and a legend to be followed.
However, every hero has a shelf life in Pakistan, be it a cricket super star, a musical legend, a Martial Law dictator, or the chief justice, and Mr sharif is no exception. One after another, through his every decision after the final reinstatement of Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry in 2009, he has done everything to let the people down. In his remaining tenure, he dedicated himself to protect the political interest of PML-N and the personal stakes of Iftikhar Chaudhry. But, the story of betrayal did not end there, worse still had to come.
A few years ago, he shocked the civil society with his decision to defend Mumtaz Qadri - who killed the former governor of Punjab, Salman Taseer - in his appeal against the ruling of Anti Terrorist Court. For me the question is why should we look at his decision with such disdain. Does the constitution not provide everyone the right to defend oneself? Then why should Mr. Qadri be stripped off the right to prove his innocence? I think this point needs some explanation. Let me begin by saying that the constitution does not condone any crime whether it is committed in the name of honor, religion, caste or ethnicity; nor does it exonerate any criminal. It gives you the right to defend yourself under attack and that’s that. Mr Sharif, and his client, are not claiming innocence at all. They are trying to justify the murder of an honorable man on religious grounds, calling it an act provoked by Mr Taseer, which is nothing but an absurd and a blatant lie. His plea, which provides a license to kill anyone and may even justify the savagery of Taliban, has infuriated people so much that they doubt the credibility of every judgment he made as a judge.
To be honest, we all know that the blasphemy laws, as controversial as they may be, are enacted to protect the faith of minorities and are implemented to safeguard their religion from being ridiculed by an imposing majority - not otherwise. Then, the late Governor did not commit blasphemy, not even close. All he did was to try to help a Christian woman with meager resources against religious discrimination. Moreover, even if Mr. Taseer had committed a crime, he had to be tried in a court of law where he could get a fair chance to explain his position. Nonetheless, way before any court had summoned him, his official body guard, Mumtaz Qadri, breaking every code of ethics, morality, human rights and the Sharia, shot down the person he was paid, trained and equipped to defend in the first place, an act based on professional misconduct and fraud. Does Islam promote it? I guess it does in Mr Sharif’s dictionary.
