It is, indeed, a defining moment for Pakistan’s apex judiciary. In the 70th year of its independent existence it has now God given opportunity to rewrite its otherwise questionable performance as one of the institutions that let down everything associated with morality, truth, justice and fair play. Let the reserved one be the mother of all judicial decisions for posterity to remember. I know what I am writing would not be welcome by many who don’t subscribe to the school of thought held by American philosopher George Santayana: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”. They believe and say that quoting past controversial judgments amount to bringing the judiciary under indirect pressure which is absolutely undesirable. One is reminded that while quoting the past examples we must realize that all the disputed judgments were the result of the negative influence used by the rulers/establishment on the judiciary to get a judicial decision by their choice. It is said that precisely for this reason a demand is being made for PM’s resignation following the judicial findings in the Panama case. One must keep reverting back to history to correct the future course, not to repeat past mistakes They think that the Prime Minister continues to be the absolute ruler though condemned as Godfather by senior judges of the Supreme Court. According to its critics Sharif family has a history of influencing the judiciary. It shall always be remembered how Supreme Court was attacked by PML-N goons to enforce executive coup against the sitting CJP, late Justice Sajjad Ali Shah in which ‘chamak’ in brief cases (a term coined by Benazir Bhutto for bribery) were used to buy judges. Even now it is being said that “all the means” will be used to pressurise the judiciary to bail PM out of Catch-22 dilemma. One must keep reverting back to history to correct future course, not to repeat past mistakes. We need to recall the most controversial judgment of the Supreme Court headed by the late Chief Justice Muhammad Munir who adjudicated in favour of the dismissal of the first legislative assembly and the government of Prime Minister Khawaja Nazimuddin upholding dubious action of a physically disabled Governor General Ghulam Muhammad. Had Justice Munir upheld the decision of the Sindh High Court declaring Governor General’s decision as ultra vires and restored the Legislative Assembly — course of our history would have been on the right track. Justice Munir preferred to kowtow the power troika comprising of military, civil and judicial bureaucracy as the sole arbiter of power and dealt a crippling blow to Quaid’s Pakistan. Ever since then until now our judicial history has remained under the spell of evil spirit. Many of the major decisions of the Supreme Court can be traced to have their roots in the follies, intrigues and machinations of the past in overwhelming support of the extra-constitutional interventions that favoured arbitrary dismissals of the governments of the day. As I sat to write I could not be sure of what the reserved judgment would have for the nation that has built high hopes in the pronouncement of Supreme Court Justice Asif Saeed Khosa that the judgment would be remembered for decades to come. Indeed, it has to have something that would ensure that guilty shall not escape punishment-come what may. Since the judgment would settle many vital issues including the elusive question of transparent accountability, it would definitely have an impact on the future course of history. It needs to be kept in mind that many of the past decisions did not contribute towards strengthening of democratic institutions or rule of law. Rather, they were responsible for the subversion of democracy and constitution abdicating in support of extra-constitutional interventions by Bonapartist Generals like Ayub Khan, Yahya Khan, Ziaul Haq and Pervez Musharraf. Like Justice Munir’s — judgment with fatal consequences has been the judicial murder of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto upheld by four to three judges of the Supreme Court to comply with the wishes of General Ziaul Haq. What made it most lethal judgment for body politics of Pakistan was the fact that it was rendered not on the merit of the case but to sustain a dictator on grounds of ethnicity and barrel of the gun. Four judges of the Supreme Court including the chief justice hailed from the majority province of Punjab while the other three judges who found Zulfikar Ali Bhutto innocent of the charge of alleged murder were from smaller provinces. This has been the single blow that keeps reverberating whenever a Punjabi Prime Minister is favoured. The list of judicial injustices is much too long. Remember, abuse of apex judiciary when Supreme Court was to announce restoration of the government of Prime Minister Muhammad Khan Junejo from Sindh following its illegal dismissal by Zia exercising his arbitrary powers under Article 58-2 (B). Just minutes before the Supreme Court judgment, Army Chief General Aslam Beg sent the Acting Chairman of the Senate Waseem Sajjad to the chief justice warning him of imposition of martial law if the sacked Prime Minister was restored. One would not like to remind here how Benazir Bhutto was denied landslide victory by Generals Aslam Beg and Hameed Gul by raising up IJI and funding leaders like Nawaz Sharif in both 1988 and 1990 elections. Supreme Court did pass a judgment but it remains unimplemented to this day. Most glaring was the use of superior judges by Nawaz government to get Benazir Bhutto and Asif Zardari convicted by Justice Qayum. So on and so forth has been the judicial charade. Now the countdown has begun. One would hope that the reserved judgment would do an everlasting good for the country and would not put us back to square one. The writer is the former High Commissioner of Pakistan to the United Kingdom and a veteran journalist Published in Daily Times, July 26th , 2017.