Whenever there is a high profile case before the honourable Supreme Court one vainly expects that perhaps now is the time for our apex judiciary to rewrite its history-correct its false trajectory of acting in criminal subservience to the executive currently branded as deep state. Indeed, the ‘selected ten’ instead of chartering a healthier course seems to have –after much hullabaloo to an apogee of high crescendo of national aspirations fallen to the ridiculous.
They have reinvigorated the widely held perception that a large number of judges and members of the journalistic community would remain to act like the unbending proverbial tail of the dog despite been put in a cast for thousand years to straighten it. It is too mild to say that the people have been once again let down when they needed truth to be spoken and sanctity of the constitution to be preserved.
Time and again they have been accused of betraying the trust reposed in them by the masses especially at a time when democracy is under the plethora of onslaught from various vested interests. It was the most despicable moment in our judicial history when ‘ten wise men in robes’ totally ignored the criminal malafide intent expressed in the overly flawed reference against honourable Justice Faez Isa. It is as open endorsement of the establishment to over ride supremacy of the judiciary, rule of law and constitution. The message is clear opposition by the Bonapartist generals; self-serving politicians and top ranking civil bureaucrats cannot be challenged.
In Justice Qazi Faez Isa’s case, he stood up to defend his principles against the deep state when he took to task its overindulgent head found supporting the bigots in the Dharna against the then elected government to pave way for a selected prime minister
My humble observations are not far from truth. I have been a witness to it since early fifties when the first seedlings were planted to ensure that Pakistan does not have a prosperous democracy for the greatest good of the largest number. I am grateful to my late guru Pakistan’s top most journalistic historiographer-Zamir Niazi-for having laid bare in his monumental book “PRESS IN CHAINS” how “a judiciary with eroded authority and a muzzled Press played havoc with the destiny of the nation.” Indeed, had the members our superior judiciary and those in the media who had claimed to be part of Quaid-i-Azam’s dream-boat played their roles with equanimity without bartering their independence for self-dividends in the formative phase, our democratic institutions by now would have been formidable enough to withstand any extra-constitutional pressures and nipped the Bonapartic conspiracies. They would not have crumbled one by one over the years giving birth to Hitler-like authoritarianism in its present form now that could at best be described as Khaki democracy.
There is, therefore, lot of truth in the observation that Pakistan’s initial history is a tale of compromises by judges and journalists on issues of principles. Surely, not many media voices were raised when Quaid’s historic commandment to the nation of August 11, 1947 in which he had made it categorical that religion will have nothing to do with the business of the state was censored on the orders of the self-styled Secretary General of the GoP Choudhri Muhammad Ali. Not only that, when Governor General Ghulam Muhammad, Choudhri Muhammad Ali, Major General ® Iskandar Mirza and General Ayub Khan plotted to replace Prime Minister Khawaja Nazimuddin with a puppet of their own to pave way for an ultimate take over by them, according to Zamir Niazi then “the Press became a willing tool” in their hands.
In a well-orchestrated media blitzkrieg, the “the most honest and the gentleman prince among politicians ” was dubbed as “Quaid-i-Qillat”, forced. Had he not refused to quit on engineered pressure by Establishment’s ‘B’ team-Jamaat-i-Islami, the Governor General was urged upon to sack “the Prime Minister” and, if need be, suspend the Constitution. Ghulam Muhammad was also advised to run the state through civil servants. On an earlier occasion, we have on record, a joint editorial by sixteen top daily newspaper editors (of the western wing) demanding suspension of Lahore’s oldest English newspaper ‘Civil & Military Gazette’ for publishing a story about a compromise formula based on proposed partition for Kashmir.
The anti-Khawaja Nazimuddin media diatribe was a command operation followed by his dismissal by the Governor-General. The tragic turn of political events had thus created a constitutional crisis and posed a serious challenge for the superior judiciary. It needs to be mentioned here that the Sindh Chief High Court (as it was known then) acted in the letter and spirit of the constitutional law of the land, showed exemplary courage, conviction and honesty and declared Governor-General’s proclamation of dismissing the Constituent Assembly as “unconstitutional and void”.
This landmark judgement by Chief Justice Constantine in Maulvi Tamizuddin Khan Vs the State of Pakistan-can be described as a crown jewel on the judicial body marred by scars of inglorious performance as those inflicted on the nation by Chief Justice Muhammad Munir who later even gave legitimacy to Ayub’s Martial Law under the Doctrine of Necessity. And ever since then every successful military dictator has had a judicial sanction.
Pakistan is a vast desert of lawless jackboots where we have had judicial flowers as well. Like Chief Justice Constantine of Sindh Chief Court, his colleague Justice Mohammad Baksh Memon, Federal Court judge Mr Justice Cornelius who disagreed with Justice Munir and wrote a dissenting note that since the Constituent Assembly is a body representative of the will of the people; it cannot be surpassed by the arbitrary act of an individual.
While we have had a whole lot of rotten eggs in our judicial basket such as Munir, Anwarul Haq, Maulvi Mushtaq, Qayum, Rashid Aziz and Saqqib Nisar to name a few, Pakistanis would always feel proud of judges like M.R. Kiyani, Safdar Shah, Tufail Ali Abdur Rahman, Muhammad Haleem, Dorab Patel, Samdani, Waheeduddin Ahmed, Hamoodur Rahman, Aslam Zahid, Khuda Baksh Marri, Tariq Mehmud and Justice Qazi Faez Isa. Besides, don’t forget the infamous four who hanged martyred Zulfikar Ali Bhutto on the orders of General Ziaul Haq.
In Justice Qazi Faez Isa’s case, he stood up to defend his principles against the deep state when he took to task its overindulgent head found supporting the bigots in the Dharna against the then elected government to pave way for a selected prime minister.
Where do we go from here? The ‘great’ judgement that has neither been here, nor there-seems to be a swan song for hopes of an independent judiciary. Justice Isa now should rest his case in the court of the Lord above–in that court it is HE who decides not the deep state.
Author is the former High Commissioner of Pakistan to UK and a veteran journalist