The country’s superior judiciary remains in a bind

The supreme court of the nation is still caught in a bind. Since an eight-member bench led by the chief justice took action too soon to ensure that the Supreme Court (Practise and Procedure) Act would become a stillborn law, a number of senior justices have, on various occasions, been less than enthusiastic about hearing significant cases until issues relating to the constitutionality of the aforementioned law are definitively resolved.
The subject came up once more on Friday during the hearing of a petition contesting the country’s anti-corruption laws reforms implemented last year by the PDM government.
A full court bench would be formed to hear the case, according to Justice Mansoor Ali Shah, who is a member of the three-member bench hearing the protracted case. Justice Mansoor Ali Shah noted that since the SC had not yet rendered a decision on the Practise and Procedure law, it might be best to refer the matter to a larger bench keeping in mind the case’s implications.
Recall that the PDM administration attempted to transfer the chief justice’s suo motu authority and the authority to form benches to a committee made up of the three senior-most judges of the supreme court under the Practise and Procedure Act.
Recall that the PDM administration attempted to transfer the chief justice’s suo motu authority and the authority to form benches to a committee made up of the three senior-most judges of the supreme court under the Practise and Procedure Act. The later Supreme Court (Review of Judgements and Orders) Act, which the SC invalidated last week, had elements of the Practise and Procedure Act as well.
The chief justice noted that it “would veer towards irrationality to hold” that the legislature could override the CJP and adopt a law eliminating his prerogative to exercise and invoke jurisdiction under Article 184(3) at one stage in the decision invalidating the latter statute.
The Practise and Procedure Act might suffer a similar fate, according to this. The internal disagreements of the supreme court complicate any judgement for or against the statute, leaving the bench considering the case in a Catch-22 predicament.
If the chief justice had dealt with the disagreements inside his court sooner and amicably, the Practise and Procedure Act might not have become an albatross around the SC’s neck. He was constantly asked by his fellow judges to create guidelines governing suo motu and bench-fixing authority, but he refused to give them up.
He failed to enlist institutional support behind him when the PDM government tried to exploit these splits for its own purposes.
He failed to garner support from within the institution behind him, which was detrimental to the judiciary as a whole when the PDM government attempted to take advantage of these differences for its own purposes. But it’s never too late to absorb a lesson from the past. One more month will pass until the chief justice retires. He has to use it to finish up any loose ends. The grass has been trodden on and a lot of time has been wasted in this elephant conflict. He has to put an end to it.