On the eve of the new judicial year commencing today, severe reservations have been listed out by the puisne judge soliciting the attention of the chief justice towards unconventional affairs prevalent at the top court. Justice Mansoor Ali Shah, in a letter to Chief Justice Yahya Afridi, has called for reassuring the judges, the bar and the public that the “vision of reforms” of the court of law shall be grounded in “collegiality, transparency, and fidelity to the Constitution”.
In an epoch-making disclosure as a judicial conference to review the reforms is scheduled today, the senior-most judge has, through six queries, put the top judge in the dock. The points raised in the letter are of high public importance and cannot be brushed aside as a campaign in dissent.
The salient features of the concerns raised are: Why has the Practice and Procedure Act Committee never been convened to carry out its statutory responsibilities? Why was the policy on releasing dissenting opinions termed “unheard of”? Is the CJP “enforcing compliance to turn (the) court into a regimented force rather than a constitutional court of free and equal judges? And why have petitions challenging the 26th amendment not been fixed before the original full court?
This disquiet, nonetheless, has come on the heels of another charge-sheet from two senior IHC judges highlighting the “judicial ills”. They sought a revision of the full court’s agenda, expressing strong reservations about the IHC’s state of affairs and reminding that the constitutionally-guaranteed fundamental rights against the abuse of power by the state are not being protected.
It is a foregone conclusion that the judiciary is under pressure from the executive and, thus, has been at a failure to dispense its duties. Its judicial review stands curtailed as political maneuvering has taken the centre stage at the courts. The demand from the puisne judge that petitions challenging the 26th amendment be heard by the full court, and that too by excluding judges elevated under the impugned law, is spot on. Let the judicial course-correction be set in public interest and viability of the Constitution.