Parliamentary resolution
They have vowed to safeguard the “dignity of parliament”, the treasury benches of the national assembly have. Yes, a hollow statement but one whose timing is more important than its text. This is the eve, presumably, of the Supreme Court’s decision on the speaker’s ruling case.
The petition for the aforementioned case challenges the speaker’s dismissal of the reference against the case for dismissal of the prime minister. Barring the PML(N), it was filed by parties that are not members of parliament, like the PTI. So the parliamentary resolution is going to be angled as institutional activism. This is all to pre-empt the Supreme Court’s decision. Decide what you may, seems to be the ruling party’s warning bugle, but do realise we’re going to make this look like the suppression of the people’s will.
The Supreme Court could either rule to be satisfied by the speaker’s argument. Or it could speak directly to the chief election commissioner and ask for the representative from Multan to be deseated. The latter approach would, to state the obvious, be confrontational.
As opposed to the political government, the opposition or the military, the judiciary can never be asked to be circumspect with regards to how sensitive things are in the country and how the polity cannot sustain a constitutional crisis. It would be wrong to make these demands of the court. It is not the judiciary’s lot to make the just decision or to make one that wouldn’t harm the country. It is their job to whip out the law and see what it says. There is room for interpretation, yes, but even that is, theoretically, to mine the letter of the law for the spirit.
There are competing schools of thought on how to interpret the constitution. All of them claim to assess the spirit of the law better. All of them should be heard out. We need lesser of the drama and more of a legal and, indeed, academic debate.
