Justice Isa has committed three cardinal sins. He was the author of the Quetta Commission Report into the bombing in August 2016 wherein he noted the complicity of terrorist and jihadi organisations with the security organs of the government. Then he took suo motu notice of the 21-day long Faizabad dharna staged by the Labaik Ya Rasool Allah in November 2017 and censured the dubious role therein of civil-military intelligence agencies, the Election Commission of Pakistan, PTI and touts like Sheikh Rashid, Ijaz ul Haq etc. Last month, he made bold to deliver a lecture to a gathering of civil society in Lahore on the merits of democracy, the protections afforded to it in the 1973 constitution of Pakistan and how these have been violated from time to time to the detriment of the judiciary and Pakistan. Wounded, all the “aggrieved” parties filed review petitions in the Supreme Court of Pakistan, seeking a reversal or expungement from the record of the stinging remarks passed by the good judge. Meanwhile, a conspiracy was hatched to discredit and maybe even get rid of him from the SC. After all, the Miltablishment has no love lost for judges who are inclined to rock its boat. In this case, the motivation is doubly reinforced: the troublesome judge is lined up to be the Chief Justice of Pakistan in a few years’ time.
But the ironies in this case should not to be missed. Qazi Faez Isa was the very judge who presided over the Memogate case in 2011 in which the PPP’s Ambassador to Washington, Hussain Haqqani, was hauled over the coals by the Miltablishment. Then Qazi Faez Isa was deemed patriotic, now he is subversive. Hence the Reference for Misconduct filed by the President of Pakistan, Arif Alvi, upon the advice of the Prime Minister, Imran Khan, both of whom have been suitably guided. The Reference was stitched up by two of the PM’s point-men in such matters: the man who drummed up the complaint, Shahzad Akbar, the PM’s special assistant on accountability heading the newly established Assets Recovery Unit, and Farogh Naseem, the Miltablishment’s favourite [Law] Minister who was also General Pervez Musharraf’s lawyer. Mr Alvi, it may be recalled, had tweeted in high praise of Justice Isa in 2015 and Ms Shirin Mazari had lauded his upright and independent stature as a judge. The former has now blithely signed on the dotted line while the latter is conspicuous by her stunning silence.
Whether or not Qazi Faez Isa was obliged by law to declare some of his foreign wife’s assets in his own wealth statement, the political motivation to gun for him cannot be denied. The PM and President come to the Reference with unclean hands, bad faith and mala fide intentions. This fact alone will certainly cast a dark shadow over the trial. This case also has the potential to weaken and drain the SC by subjecting its judges to “accountability” trials for political reasons. As it is, the Court is already in the dock of the PMLN and tens of millions of its supporters for stringing up Nawaz Sharif on the dry twig of Iqama. It is doubly ironic that this Supreme Court comprises judges who were in the vanguard of the Movement for the Restoration of Democracy a decade ago against the authoritarian whims of a military dictator. Should they again succumb to pressures from similar quarters, they will be signing off on the chapter of their collective demise in the people’s history of Pakistan. After the siege of the mainstream parties and the capitulation of servile media owners, the SC is the last bastion of the Republic. As we speak, there are loud whispers that the next-Chief Justice of Pakistan, Gulzar Ahmad, is also in the gun sights of the same forces for censuring their pet housing societies.
The agitation brewing outside the SC should not be dismissed out of hand just because the two mainstream political parties, PPP and PMLN, are crippled by the incarceration of their respective leaders. Civil society and lawyers countrywide are beginning to stand up as much in personal support of Justice Faez Isa as for the principle of judicial independence and opposition to Miltablishment meddling. The Additional Attorney General in Karachi has resigned in protest; national and provincial Bar Associations have resolved to resist such conspiracies; leading lawyers, retired judges and independent media persons are speaking up. Despite the censorship and blackmailing threats, there are stirrings of resistance everywhere.
PEMRA is trying desperately to stop the media from airing contrary opinion and the facts. No matter. The truth will out and this attack on the judiciary will be repulsed. The puppeteer and the selected government will rue the day their arrogance and self-righteousness got the better of them as General Pervez Musharraf learnt to his abiding regret.