An important clause of the Charter of Democracy, which was signed way back in 2006 between Benazir Bhutto of Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and Nawaz Sharif of Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N), asks for establishment of a Constitutional Court solely responsible for constitutional matters/interpretation of laws. The present Supreme Court (SC) was to be maintained as an appeal court for non-constitutional issues. Such an arrangement is quite prevalent in many countries and clearly demarks the jurisdiction of respective courts. Though both the PPP and PML-N are in power for last four years, however, they have not yet taken any serious initiative for establishment of a Constitutional Court.
But don’t we think time has come for such an action. Even if we ignore the general impression among masses that present SC has been badly politicised and working very vigorously to haunt a few in the ruling party, the superior court’ attempts to take over the governance matters have created a conflict between judiciary and the executive. We all know that tens of thousands of petitions are eating dust waiting to become part of the Cause List (weekly selection of cases for hearing) but SC is prioritising the cases on its own without any logical merit. Once we used to joke that after every unfortunate incident in the country, how long it takes for the president/prime minister or interior minister to issue a statement that they have taken the notice and have demanded an enquiry report (generally within 24-48 hours). After the recent surge in judicial activism and increased number of suo moto notices, Chief Justice has also joined this privileged ‘notice takers’ group and sometimes he is the first one whose ticker appears on the TV channels asking for enquiry report. One day SC is involved in regulating the prices of sugar, the other day they will be hearing petition against increased prices of samosas in Lahore. Then you will find chief justices of three high courts sitting for months hearing a case wherein an American citizen has written a memo to an American general.
Regretfully, most of the time, it’s all waste of national resources wherein government has nothing to do except prepare for hearings in the court and pay hefty fees to lawyers from national exchequer. And at the end these lawyers are only able to defer the cases for few more days or weeks, a breathing space for the government. However, regardless of this deferment, judgment remains the same as the court has already made up its mind.
Let both the main political parties move forward to create a Constitutional Court while present SC should continue to work as an appeal court and happily get engaged in samosas and sugar pricing issues.
MASOOD KHAN
Jubail, Saudi Arabia
