“There is a Chinese curse which says ‘May he live in interesting times.’ Like it or not, we live in interesting times. They are times of danger and uncertainty, but they are also more open to the creative energy of men than any other time in history,” said Robert Kennedy in his speech in 1966. He meant that the time was full of the fear that people had over what the future would hold.
The above quote fits very well to the current situation in Pakistan. The masses are confused and fearful about their future, the economic situation, health, and the future of their children. The general elections are scheduled already, but predominantly, people are insouciant and show little in the way of enthusiasm about it. This is all because of the politics of revenge and negativity, the rampant spread of fake news on social media by those who believe that they are the targets of the powerful military, the judicial activism of the higher courts, and the paranoia among the opinion makers and the “people with microphones and cameras,” who have tendencies to extract only depressing and negative connotations. After the retirement of Justice Umar Ata Bandial, the Supreme Court’s activism subsided. However, the lower courts are still making questionable decisions.
The recent verdict of the 3-judge bench of the Supreme Court, where the SC upheld the verdict of the Election Commission of Pakistan, in which the EC — after several warnings for over a year, to Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf to hold its intra-party elections — took away the party’s electoral symbol after the PTI could not satisfy the EC about their elections. After the SC verdict was out, a massive smear campaign began against Chief Justice Qazi Faez Isa by PTI’s social media operatives, and video bloggers, although there were two other judges, were also part of the unanimous verdict. They wanted the SC to allow the PTI to go to elections under one unified symbol – the infamous ‘bat.’
All those voices forget that the Supreme Court was not listening to PTI’s case over the election symbol, but it was hearing the petition filed by the Election Commission whose verdict was overturned by the Peshawar High Court, which took away the power of EC to regulate political parties. The SC heard from the PTI for almost two days and all the hearings were televised live for the public. After the PTI lawyers had provided no shred of evidence about their intra-party elections, the SC upheld the EC verdict and canceled the Peshawar High Court verdict.
Those who are criticizing the verdict have different perspectives.
All those voices forget that the Supreme Court was not listening to PTI’s case over the election symbol, but it was hearing the petition filed by the Election Commission whose verdict was overturned by the Peshawar High Court, which took away the power of EC to regulate political parties.
Many contend that the verdict disenfranchised millions of voters who have a right to vote. They quote the Constitution’s Article 17, which mentions that every citizen shall have the right to form associations or unions, subject to any reasonable restrictions imposed by law in the interest of the sovereignty or integrity of Pakistan, public order, or morality.
Although the SC verdict is fully aligned with the law, and the PTI got every chance to justify their elections, they could not provide even a shred of evidence about their intra-party elections. Still, the judges should have ideally overridden the technicalities of the law, ignored all the incompetence of PTI's lawyers and ought to have allowed them to have a symbol so the elections would not be controversial.
Firstly, PTI voters have not been prevented from going to polling stations and voting for their candidates—whom they would vote for even if PTI had its electoral symbol. The only difference would be that their candidate would not have a PTI symbol, but some individual symbol.
When the PTI was warned, by the Election Commission, that they would lose their symbol, did any of those who were running the smear campaign against the Chief Justice ever question the PTI or ran a campaign against them about their action to violate human rights? If not, then instead of lecturing the Supreme Court to cross lines, they should run a campaign against those who committed the crime and could not defend it.
If anyone violated the Constitution, it is PTI that should be blamed, not the Supreme Court, which gave them every chance to provide at least something so that it could return its symbol. There was a time when the court reporters had a monopoly over reporting court proceedings, but thanks to Justice Qazi Faez Isa, now everyone can watch the proceedings live from the Supreme Court.
This is akin to claiming that if I sell iron, I should stop selling it because someday someone might make a gun out of it. If we are so fearful about empowering the Election Commission, then why don't we close the matter with legislation?
What should the courts do then?
The idea that the verdict would give the establishment another weapon is complete nonsense. For a long time, the debate was about empowering the Election Commission so that no one can intervene in its affairs, and it would conduct the elections towards the end of the incumbent government’s time in power, like in India and Bangladesh. But now a new argument has started, that the Election Commission must not be empowered because the establishment will abuse the empowered institution.
This is akin to claiming that if I sell iron, I should stop selling it because someday someone might make a gun out of it. If we are so fearful about empowering the Election Commission, then why don't we close the matter with legislation? How about dismantling the military and removing the judiciary because they may abuse their powers as well? This argument makes little sense in the scope of a federation. Indeed, power is always abused and institutions will always overstep their prescribed guardrails, but the bright side of such a clear verdict is that all the political parties ought to keep their houses in order in the knowledge that the Election Commission could question their processes.
The media reaction to the Supreme Court verdict badly exposed all those who always lecture over the significance of the rule of law. They wanted the Supreme Court to satisfy both parties, no matter what unlawful mistakes were committed. They must understand that the Supreme Court’s job is not to serve justice, but to scrutinize the lower court's verdicts to ensure if they are in accordance with the law, or if the lower courts have overdone what they are not allowed to.
This is an old claim - that the establishment wants powerless, toothless institutions, a compliant judiciary, managed airwaves and weak civilian governments. Justice Qazi Faez Isa—who suddenly became a pariah in the eyes of a large part of the Pakistan media — has an amazing record of taking cases that are very unpopular from the establishment’s perspective, and sometimes even the elected government’s points of view. The establishment, with the help of pliant civilian governments, the judiciary, and the media, tried to defame Justice Isa, to ensure that he would not become Chief Justice.
History will be instructive that those trying to malign him were supporting the establishment.