Past and present
The matter of military courts has once again brought the Supreme Court’s footprint into the realm of mainstream policymaking. One of the reasons the 21st amendment generated such unprecedented unanimity in parliament was the collective belief in the inability of the judiciary to meet the challenge. Yet the Court seems to think otherwise, even though there is ample proof of courts letting terrorists walk for a host of reasons. And it’s not as if the judiciary has remained outside the news for too long since the lawyers’ movement.
However, it lost following as time went by. When then CJ Iftikhar Chaudhry’s fate hung in the balance in ’07, the movement was supported by a wide range of social society organisations. There was also considerable political support, of course. But the more the Chaudhry court’s attention turned to Islamabad’s power politics, the more its supporters’ rank and file thinned. Now, only some within the community still believe in the movement. Most are disillusioned. Primarily, when the judiciary’s struggle came to prominence, most common Pakistanis felt that finally some attention would be paid to the broken down judicial system. Cases would no longer take decades to decide. Quality and quickness of justice delivery would improve.
That, unfortunately, did not happen. The judiciary says that the government never provided them with the necessary framework to make necessary arrangements to speed up the backlog. Critics, on the other hand, maintain that the institution took its eye off the ball, and became increasingly politicised. It also became a lot more belligerent. Lawyers thrashing police officers, staging unruly protests and roughing up people has become more common. That, of course, is not to imply that the judiciary has not done more than most institutions to hold up the state. But the main reason for its existence remains compromised. As an institution, it must cater to these problems urgently.
