Fixing The Judiciary, Pak Style

Pakistan’s judicial community is up in arms against what could best be described as a government-judiciary stand-off, where Justice Qazi Faez Isa, one of its most cited judges – and slated to take over as the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in 2023 – is being hounded by the government and the army. His crime: Delivering independent judgements and remarks in cases against the government and the powerful army.

It’s deja vu. In 2007, President General Pervez Musharaff had sacked and then arrested the then-Chief Justice of Pakistan, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, which galvanized into a lawyers’ movement, one of the biggest civil protests in the history of Pakistan, and ultimately led to the downfall of Musharaff.

Today, history seems to be repeating itself in Pakistan. At a time when it is going through a serious economic crisis, its all-powerful military establishment has done something that could create further political instability. The Imran Khan government moved a reference or a case against Justice Qazi Faez Isa of the Supreme Court to the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC), claiming that the judge had not declared his overseas properties in his tax returns. Interestingly, a reference can be filed by a private person but in this case it was filed by Pakistan President Arif Alvi. It was claimed that this had been done to show that the Khan government was carrying out its anti-corruption drive across the board. To make the impression more authentic, the army for the first time publicly sentenced a retired brigadier to death and a retired general to life imprisonment.

Justice Isa hails from the insurgency-ridden Balochistan province and has delivered verdicts that have not gone down well with the army. He is known for his independent judgments and remarks in cases against the government and the powerful army.

Also, the judge is no novice. He accused President Arif Alvi of ‘violating’ his oath by leaking selected judiciary-related documents to the media with an intent to tarnish his image. Justice Isa, who is going to be the Chief Justice of Supreme Court in 2023, penned two letters to President Alvi.

In the first, he asked him why he had allegedly leaked particular parts, where he figured, to the media. He mentioned that it was a clear intent to malign him and his family’s reputation.