- Enter his ghost
Justice Shaukat Siddiqi, senior judge of the Islamabad High Court, has been sacked by the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC). The former judge was convicted for criticising the ISI and judiciary in a speech at a meeting of the Rawapindi Bar Association. The former judge was a temperamental and excitable person who failed to understand that caution is the better part of valour. Several other complaints against him relating to altogether different matters were already lying with the Council. The SJC chose the speech because it provided a close and shut case against a judge who had become a constant irritant.
This is the first time that a judge has been sent home by the SJC under an elected government. So far judges have been removed through the SJC only under military rulers: Justice Ikhlaq Hussain under Ayub Khan, Justice Shaukat Ali under Yahya Khan and Justice G. Safdar Shah during the Zia Martial Law. Justice Hasan Ali Agha was exonerated of all charges in 1951. Some of the remarks made at the Rawalpindi Bar Association were irresponsible and indiscrete. One had however expected a lighter sentence from the SJC.
Justice Shaukat Siddiqui ruffled many feathers during the hearings on Tahrik-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP)’s Faizabad dharna in November last year. The judge had called the sit-in an anti-state activity and an act of terrorism. He reacted strongly to the appeasement of the TLP, whose leaders had challenged the writ of the state for weeks by continuing to occupy a busy thoroughfare, foiling attempts made by police to evict them by recourse to force. He had further questioned the involvement of an army officer as a mediator. The remarks were resented by the ISI which sought their expunction.
Notwithstanding the way Shaukat Siddiqui raised the question, the danger posed by the extremists cannot be pushed under the carpet. What is more the mainstreaming of extremist networks is replete with consequences that would be dangerous for the country. Organisations like TLYR, ASWJ, and MML do not accept the constitution and reject democratic system with pluralism as its essence. On Thursday a bench of the SC asked how parties that opposed the constitution can be allowed to contest the elections.