Judges asked to respect their limits

Senator Farhatullah Babar on Thursday took strong exception to remarks by an SC judge made during hearing in a suo motu case that the BISP had made the people beggars and that the funds should have been allocated to WAPDA, asking judges to respect their limits.

Speaking on a point of order in the Senate, he said remarks like such by judges did not enhance the prestige and dignity of the courts, adding that the dignity of the courts could not be upheld by resorting to contempt law alone. “Dignity that is sought through coercive means and not through judgments and above board conduct is fragile,” he said.

He said the poverty alleviation program was passed unanimously by the previous parliament through an act and the Senate also passed a unanimous resolution in its support.

“A new parliament and new government has come into being as a result of the May 11 elections which too in its wisdom has decided to not only continue the program but also increase the allocation for it,” Babar said.

“For an honorable judge to imply that parliament had acted unwisely or imprudently is most unfortunate,” he said.

“It seems that the restoration of honorable judges through a mass movement has led some to believe that they have some supra-constitutional mandate to fix everything in the country, be it the question of sugar prices, or overturn the ruling of the speaker or chasing a prime minister out of office or even questioning the patriotism and loyalty of overseas Pakistanis.”

Babar said, “At the same time answer to pointed questions like whether there were dual national judges are avoided and questions about cases pending in high courts are refused to be answered on the ground that it was against its independence,” he said.

“We appreciate the sense of purpose demonstrated by our honorable judges but there is a very fine distinction between sense of purpose and vanity,” he warned.

Babar said the appearance of some populism flowing from the success of the restoration movement was understandable, but it would be dangerous if it were to become the ground norm of the Supreme Court.

He also took note of the near monolith with no or little dissent in the verdicts.

He said to err was human and everyone, including parliament and the judiciary, made mistakes. “But when an honorable bench is seen to be marching as a unit it becomes difficult for it to see that it may have actually erred.”

He concluded by reminding the PML-N government that setting up of a Constitution Court had been put on hold on their request and it was time that it was set up.