Constitutional Legitimacy
This amendment was never about creating a more responsive and accountable judiciary, but one that could be more easily managed by a hybrid regime that is insecure about its own future. Divested of pretence, it must be called for what it truly is: an instrument of guarantee.
The Suo Motu’s Integrity Problem
My argument is that the Supreme Court’s power to take suo motu notice, as it is currently practiced, is difficult to justify from either a rule of law perspective, or, from the standards of democratic governance. And for this reason, I think it is time we gave serious consideration to arguments concerning the merits of judicial restraint and a reform of the powers of the Chief Justice of Pakistan.
The Black Box
In numerous judgments, the Supreme Court of Pakistan has stressed the need for transparency, accountability, and objective decision-making by all other institutions of government. Yet, the appointment process for High Court judges lacks all three elements.
The Reference: Part 2
In twin judicial opinions, Justice Mansoor Ali Shah and Justice Baqar have gone further than the majority judgment in highlighting the illegal actions pursued by the federal government in their quest to depose Justice Isa.
The Reference: Part 1
Justice Isa — according to the Supreme Court — committed no act that would amount to misconduct. The judgment clarifies that the President, Prime Minister, and Law Minister had no basis in law or fact to justify letting the genie out of the bottle.
The 18th Amendment & The Supreme Court
The judiciary continues to prefer, regardless of parliamentary intent, an old centralised model. The model that the 18th Amendment wanted to expunge from the Constitution. In doing so, it is creating a jurisprudence at odds with the document they are tasked with protecting. Either the judiciary must correct its course or parliament must step in before there is nothing left of the 18th Amendment to save.
Prisoners in Pandemics
The saga of the rights of prisoners during a pandemic ended with the Supreme Court (SC) of Pakistan deciding that only a limited category of prisoners awaiting trial deserved temporary freedom. In doing so, the SC refused to go as far as the more expansive judgment authored by the Islamabad High Court (IHC). This unfortunate result stems from the SC not considering vital legal principles that bore crucial relevance to the issue before them.
Absolute Discretion
The rule of law is an ideal, but it is an ideal we should be striving for rather than moving away from. Our institutions do not seem to view the law as supreme rather they view the law as an unnecessary hurdle. An impractical quagmire of technicality that gets in the way. If we allow for this thinking then it leads to those in power believing that they are above the law. That is a state we must avoid at all costs.