Let all be treated equally under the law
Nawaz Sharif has shelved the earlier plan to return to Lahore from Islamabad via GT road addressing gatherings of charged followers while traveling through Punjab’s heartland considered to be the stronghold of his party. He is coming by the motorway apparently to avoid a possible confrontation with the establishment. There are also reports that the PML-N’s legal team is about to file a review petition against the disqualification of Nawaz Sharif.
What worries many is that within a period of five years the SC has sent home two elected PMs, belonging to two major parties. This has led some to question why courts do not display similar expeditiousness in case of military rulers who stage coups and abrogate the constitution. This has also given rise to the question if only politicians were to be held accountable in Pakistan. The inclusion of ISI and MI officers in the JIT has led a former SCBA President to ask how the judges would feel if the ISI and MI officials were included in the Supreme Judicial Council. What perturbs many is that in the judgment against Sharif the disqualification criteria for elected officials has been made staggeringly wide. Is the definition of receivables given in the judgment the only interpretation allowed under the law?
Rule of law requires every citizen to be treated equally under the law. Are politicians alone to be held accountable through public trials while those in the army and judiciary are exempted from these? A demand is likely to emerge that if two major sections of the elite insist on the trial of their members through their own institutions, the cases of politicians too should go to Parliament rather than courts. That will leave only the lesser human beings to be dealt with by the courts. Meanwhile the judges should heed the former CJ Tassaduq Hussain Jilani’s warning against being self-righteous. He has also observed that all power inflates human ego while it saps judicial humility which should be an essential attribute of a judge as it protects them from complacency and self-righteousness.