Business Recorder
How Not to Dispense Justice, Pakistani Style!
By Karamatullah K. Ghori
Toronto, Canada
On January 13, a three-member bench of the Pakistani apex court, headed by Chief Justice Faez Isa, revoked the “bat”( cricket bat, that’s) of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, or PTI, while its iconic leader remains incarcerated behind the fog of nearly two hundred cases—including charges of terrorism—registered against him.
The apex court’s decision came in response to the petition from Pakistan’s highly controversial Election Commission, or ECP, and the lead role in pursuing the ECP appeal was personally played by none other than Chief Justice Faez Isa.
The legal fraternity of Pakistan has been turning on red-hot burning coals in the wake of this incendiary verdict from Faez Isa’s court. A crescendo of angry and anguished voices of protest, from eager-beavers of the legal fraternity, is ranking Isa’s verdict in the dubious company of the infamous, 1954, verdict of the head-honcho of the then Federal Court of Pakistan, Justice M. Munir. Justice Munir was the one whose fertile, but febrile, brain had spawned the ‘law of necessity’ on the basis of which he’d justified Governor-General Ghulam Mohammad’s atrocious decision to dissolve Pakistan’s first Constituent Assembly.
But before getting into the nitty-gritty, let’s digress into a message going viral on
Pakistan’s vibrant social media circuit.
It’s a report from the Principal of Quetta’s St Francis Grammar School, about one of his students, and addressed to his parents.
The student was Faez Isa. The report, making the circuit, focuses on Isa’s violent temper and proclivity to exact maximum revenge from the butt of his explosive anger. The principal suggested to Isa’s parents to seek urgent medical (psychiatric) help for their son.
One doesn’t know if Faez Isa’s parents heeded, or not, the concerned principal’s advice. But be that as it may, it seems that a grown-up Faez Isa, now occupying the highest position of justice in the Land of Pakistan, hasn’t been able to shirk off the dark side of his psyche, which remains as homophobic and vengeful as it was in his early years.
That Faez Isa, sitting on the elevated bench of justice, behaved as judge, jury, and hangman—all rolled into his vindictive persona—in actively pursuing the petition against PTI—and more than PTI, against its supremo, Imran Khan (IK)—was evident to those who witnessed the live proceedings of the apex court on television.
Faez Isa—to any jurist’s lasting and abiding regret—acted as the principal pleader of the petitioner, the notorious ECP whose head-honcho, Sikandar Raja, seems to have been cut from the same cloth—of those in the vanguard of opposing and undermining IK, tooth, and nail.
Faez Isa was interjecting himself into argumentation, against IK and PTI, with nauseating regularity, so much so that he would cut short the PTI attorney, at intervals of every two or three minutes. Not only that, but his remarks against the defense attorney were, more often than not, personal, demeaning, and outright insulting.
It was a macabre and weird spectacle, to put it mildly, in the highest court of Pakistan, the likes of which have rarely been witnessed, even in the not-so-edifying history of justice (or miscarriage of it) in Pakistan.
One of those who witnessed the court proceedings, live, was Justice Merkendey Katju, a former justice of the Indian Supreme Court, known for his candid—and often no-holds-barred—analysis of decisions handed by his own country’s apex court and of those of Pakistan. He has not only a reputation, of sorts, but also clubs of fans and critics. But no matter whether one admires or hates Justice Katju his critique is read seriously and carries a lot of weight.
Justice Katju, having had his fill of Justice Faez Isa’s weird court antics, wrote an open letter to him, which went viral in no time, on social media in Pakistan.
Katju, in his characteristic candid style—which seems too often below the belt to his detractors—declared Isa unfit to sit on any seat of justice, let alone on the highest of Pakistan’s. He reminded his readers of how determined Isa seemed, through the entire proceedings, to give no space to IK or PTI. It was obvious, to all and sundry, that Faez Isa was there—on his elevated bench—to exact vengeance from IK and drag down his PTI along with him.
Faez Isa choosing to play the devil’s advocate should pain anyone hoping that Pakistan would learn from its past and not insist on being insane—according to the definition of Albert Einstein—by repeating the same experiment, time after time, hoping that the outcome would be different.
Pakistan’s democracy, in particular, has paid a horrendous price for judges like Munir and Isa trifling with fundamentals of justice and bowing to forces bent upon disenfranchising the people on any pretext or excuse.
It’s obvious, in Faez Isa’s case that he, too, is aligning—in letter and spirit—with those extra-judicial and anti-people power, or powers, whose agenda is diametrically opposed to—and poles apart from—the will of the people of Pakistan.
These powers or forces are not only unconscionable but also purblind. Had their conscience been alive, or eyes open, they could have seen that the people of Pakistan are standing firmly by the side of PTI and its iconic leader, Imran Khan.
The anti-democratic forces have resorted to barbaric and vindictive handling of IK. They’re keeping him behind bars with active—at times, criminal—complicity of a supine and bone-corrupt justice system of Pakistan. And yet IK’s standing with the people hasn’t diminished one bit. On the contrary, the more the people witness the vacuous paucity of the weapons deployed by the power-that-be to put IK under wraps—or in chains—the more his charisma is stamped on the hearts and minds of the people of Pakistan.
It’s a lowly tactic to snatch the well-known electoral symbol of ‘bat’ from PTI. Those, including Faez Isa and Sikandar Raja, geniuses coming up with this cheap antic may think that depriving PTI candidates of their people-friendly symbol may rob them of popular approbation. But they are as wrong as were General Yahya and his gang of besotted Bonapartes.
The Bonapartes of today may be frozen in time but the people of Pakistan aren’t; they have moved and found fresh and greener pastures to feed upon.
Besides, technological advances have largely crippled the tyrants’ capacity to hamstring the people and rob them of what rightly belongs to them. PTI has both: people’s power and access to technology bypassing the Bonapartes and frustrating their vile and venal agenda.
The D-Day of general elections in Pakistan, February 8, is less than three weeks from now but may have a huge surprise for today’s besotted power barons. The election outcome, despite all calculations of deceit, fraud, and deception, could well pull the rug from under the twin tyranny of judges and generals. Keep your fingers crossed, everyone! - K_K_ghori@hotmail.com
(The author is a former ambassador and career diplomat)
