Zubair Qureshi
Members of civil society and human rights activists have expressed their outrage over “highly derogatory, inflammatory, unconstitutional and openly sexist and misogynist” remarks made on Friday by ex-Law Minister and presently the counsel for the federal government Farogh Nasim during the hearing of a reference against Justice Qazi Faez Isa in the Supreme Court (SC).
The SC bench hearing the reference had asked the government’s counsel to explain under which law the judge was personally obligated to declare assets belonging to his spouse as she was an independent taxpayer.
According to the statement, Farogh Nasim could not quote any valid Pakistani law or legal obligation and instead resorted to quoting from the Holy Quran.
When the bench asked if he was implying that it eliminated the independent legal status and capacity of women under Pakistani laws, he provided no legal response and did not retract his previous statement.
In the statement the members of civil society reminded Farogh Nasim that by misusing and misquoting a Quranic verse, he was in fact “falsely attempting to create the illusion of a legal argument whereas none of such kind existed.”
This case is far too important in the history of Pakistan’s jurisprudence, for it to be perniciously diverted and misguided into insignificance, said the statement.
“Farogh Nasim has abused his professional duty in assisting the SC, rather he tried to mislead the court by assailing and demoting the legal status and capacity of Pakistani women,” says the statement. Tahira Abdullah, eminent Human Rights activist said the Quranic verse Farogh Nasim quoted, did not eliminate, or even limit, women’s legal independence regarding their personal financial matters.”
All schools of Islamic law are unanimous in their assertion that women have the legal capacity to deal with their own financial and property matters independently, she further said.
No legal practitioner, much less an advocate of Supreme Court acting on behalf of the government, could possibly be ignorant of the above rights – well established in Fiqh and protected by the Constitution of Pakistan and the laws operating under it.
Farogh Nasim appears to have forgotten that non-Muslim women are also equal Pakistani citizens, with Constitutional and legal rights. Thus, his crude attempt to mislead the court with such Machiavellian exploitation of religion in a purely legal case, is a coldly calculated, deliberate attempt to muddy the waters and to divert the Court towards a dangerous direction in the current milieu in Pakistan. The members of civil society and activists of women rights have demanded that at the next hearing, Farogh Nasim must publicly acknowledge, apologize for and retract his arguments as well as publicly reaffirm in the open court, his recognition and acknowledgement of the legal, constitutional status and capacity of adult married Pakistani women to deal with their financial and property matters independently of their spouse.
