It’s the path of least resistance that the government has chosen to take. By not filing for an appeal against the contempt verdict that the Supreme Court gave the prime minister, many are saying the government has taken a political, rather than a legal, approach to the problem.
The ruling party has vacillated in its attitude towards the case. First, a political approach, when the fallen-from-favour Babar Awan was running the premier’s legal posse. When it became clear this thing had to play out in the court, a legal approach was employed and Aitzaz Ahsan was given the baton. Now, we have a return to some good, old-fashioned politics.
For starters, they might have done their math and realised they won’t be getting too differentiated a judgment in an appeal. Dissenting notes within a bench, and a different judgment in appeals from another bench, is getting more and more rare in the current judiciary.
Moreover, with the speaker having dismissed a petition seeking the deseating of the prime minister, the government also might feel no need to get into another rigmarole. This also just might be what the court wants; the conviction gives it enough to save face but anything more would rock the boat.
There are, however, others who specifically do want to rock the boat. The lawyers. But, as an item in this paper yesterday reveals, the government plans to throw money at that problem. A lot of it. That is something the federal government has been adept at. Considering how hostile the construct generally referred to as “the lawyers movement” is to the government, the latter hasn’t done too badly in the elections for the lawyers’ bodies. Erstwhile legal czar Babar Awan’s campaigning within this lot was much criticised but when hasn’t he been? It worked and that is the bottomline the party chairperson is interested in.
This can be a possible end of the issue. Not a prediction, this. Just an emerging possibility. If that indeed is the case, it would actually do the polity a whole lot of good. We can’t afford more of our perennial curse: interesting times.