Judge Raj's last breaths

By Naveed Chaudhary

The sessions of the Senate and the National Assembly convened on Saturday and Sunday for the constitutional amendments kept the entire nation in a frenzy.

In the absence of any result, the already politically suppressed PML-N suffered a heavy blow. The extent of incompetence is that the homework was not complete and the cornered Mian Nawaz Sharif was also invited to attend the meeting. He reached Islamabad, not finding anything to do for himself, quietly returned to Lahore after having a bad time.

The matter was to complete the count or to satisfy Maulana Fazlur Rehman, in both cases the federal government should have had a clear plan of action. Who prepared the draft, and when did it come to whom? The ministers' statements in this regard proved to be absurd. It would be fair to say that the spectacle was self-made. In this nerve-racking environment, Maulana Fazlur Rahman remained the center of attention.

The leaders of the parties included in the government continued to visit his residence, while the PTI members also continued to visit him again and again. Officials of other smaller parties were also found roaming there.

According to sources, there was a disagreement over the draft. Raising the retirement age limit to benefit a single individual was a point of contention, but a solution could be found. Then it suddenly became known that some clauses regarding the jurisdiction of military courts have also been included in the proposed amendments, which will result in the trial of those criticizing the security agencies.

In many countries, the law is that civilians who attack military installations are tried in military courts, but criticism or speech is prosecuted in ordinary courts. It has been heard that even Nawaz Sharif himself expressed his opposition to knowing this point.

It is common practice that when constitutional amendments and legislation are to be introduced, the number of members for voting is already counted.

Parliamentary party meetings are regularly attended. Availability of members is ensured by having breakfast, lunch, and dinner. This time it was seen that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to Law Minister Nazeer Tarar had left the whole matter to someone else, otherwise the parliamentary leaders of various parties could have been taken into confidence by understanding the situation in advance. It was not difficult to avoid such cowardice. What happened to the PML-N happened, but if anyone is thinking that this process of bringing judges within the constitutional and legal framework will stop, then they are living in a fool's paradise.

Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhary's Judges Restoration Movement proved to be one of the biggest deceptions done to the people of Pakistan. The system of justice was supposed to improve, but the judges built their establishment.

Taking their guise, many lawyers' groups and organizations also went out of business. Take a recent example: the eight judges who decided to restore the PTI after coming to know about bringing constitutional amendments in the Parliament, instead of issuing a detailed decision in the case of specific seats, issued an explanation on Saturday evening to stop the process.

There are already heated comments about these judges that they have gone beyond their limits and rewritten the Constitution. Now there is a controversy over the release of the explanation, the staff of the Supreme Court is giving explanations that we have no idea where it came from and how it was uploaded on the website. It has also been said that the eight judges did not issue notices to the parties as per the prevailing practice before issuing clarifications.

That is why Defence Minister Khawaja Asif commented that such judges should register themselves as political parties under the Political Parties Act.

It is also a tragedy that no judge has gone to jail despite being involved in all kinds of unconstitutional and illegal activities by being the arm of the establishment or being the establishment itself.

Even if there is more pressure when the crimes are proven, they are removed from the post and put in homes. Judge, are their children above all accountability?

The relief given to Saqib Nisar's son by the Islamabad High Court is only a glimpse of it. It is not that there were no reservations in the original establishment about the open exemption given to judges and their families, but eyes were kept closed in this regard to achieve common goals.

Now, due to their problems, this abominable alliance seems to be falling apart. The determination of the state and the government is very clear that the country cannot run if the arbitrariness of the judges continues.

A certain section of the judiciary and their pro-lawyer groups will do whatever they want, judicial reforms will keep coming because there can only be one establishment in a country. The inscription is on the wall that Judge Raj is taking its last breath.