The hurdles were many: The quite visible split in the ranks of the mainstream lawyers, the stigma of the governments tacit but active support, the vicious smear campaign, and the fact that Asma Jahangir was the first woman to contest the high profile office that for the last one year or so has become as contentious as it is coveted.
That is not to omit mention of a well-heeled opponent in Ahmad Awais, who was backed by that wing of the bar that has been in the forefront of the movement for the restoration of the deposed judges and was satisfied with the course of events thereafter. And the spoils for this particular crew were said to have included but not limited to merely basking in reflected glory.
Where most credible voices in the bar (other than the curiously abstaining Aitzaz Ahsan) backed Asma, the result of the SCBA election is definitely a rare setback for the group led by the savvy Hamid Khan.
Not long ago, this group had hegemony over all the important bar associations and councils in the country. But with Babar Awan getting into his act this not being devoid of ways and means that were dubious most have now been won over either by lawyers associated with the PPP or at least, not hostile to it.
Babar Awans tactics may have been questionable but they have delivered the bars, and the force multiplier effect that the judiciary and the bars combined were bringing to bear on a nervous executive is likely to be on the wane from now on.
Despite so much going for her, the race itself was tight, and predictably so. But Asmas support remained staunch and steadfast to the very end. The votes separating the winner from the second best were not many, to be precise as few as 38, but enough to make the mandate clear and undisputed.
The reason why the election drew such undue hype and assumed such overwhelming importance was obvious: the locking of horns between the judiciary and the government that had taken the standoff situation to the brink several times.
And in this war of attrition, the upshot was that the office of the Supreme Court Bar president was being used as a partisan, venom-spewing pulpit against the honchos in the executive as well as to file inspired suits intended to constantly keep the PPP leadership on the receiving end.
In that backdrop of perceived hostility from the judiciary and open defiance from the executive that had taken things to an uneasy stalemate far too many times for comfort, it is but natural that the PPP and its leadership would be happy at this turn of events and feel some respite from a corner that was proving to be a thorn in its flesh.
An indication of the deeply-felt reprieve and glee were the messages of felicitations to Asma that came thick and fast from the highest executive offices in the country.
To a great extent, the human right warrior Asmas victory is a backlash to the single-minded and crass manner the SCBA was run by her predecessor, Qazi Anwar.
Taking a swipe at that aspect after her election, Asma declared: “The bar will neither speak the language of the judges nor the politicians.” But this should have been a given, for Asma is amongst those few who had for far too long stood for an independent judiciary.
Every word that she has spoken since her election reaffirms that commitment.
It was only that she believed that the bench and the bar are two separate, indeed parallel parts of the same institution that differentiates her from the blunt former incumbent, Qazi Anwar.
That the bar would not be a tool, in collaboration with either of the protagonists, should be welcomed by all, for it would bring down the high temperature levels that keep on threatening the entire system with a meltdown.
Thus, expectations are high that Asma s election would reverse the process of degeneration of such an august body as the SCBA which was much in evidence in the recent past. It would also ensure a much-needed impartiality with the executive and the bench.
But the most intense efforts should be directed at remedying the many deficiencies existing in the lower tiers of the judiciary and providing immediate relief to the long-suffering millions of litigants whose precious savings and years are wasted in meaningless to-and-fro visits to these seats of justice.
The writer is Sports and Magazines Editor, Pakistan Today.
