Judiciary and Constitution
THE court is the bureaucracy of the law. If you bureaucratise popular justice, you give it the form of a court.
When you see a judge or magistrate sitting in court, you are actually looking at the result of 1,000 years of legal evolution.
” ¯ Michel Foucault Judiciary is custodian of justice system in every country of the world.
It must be independent, impartial and free of any kind of pressure, emanating from state institutions.
The primary objective of judiciary is to provide unhindered access to justice to all people without any kind of discrimination.
If it fails to do so, question will be asked from its fraternity. The judiciary must stand up to populist forces and protect constitutional ethos from being desecrated by populists.
These actions and steps will determine its constitutional obligations. Judiciary has nothing to do with politics.
But, in case of political crisis which may threaten internal stability of the country, it may intervene by taking suo motu notice under the ambit of constitution for the protection of state interests.
Recently, Pakistan has witnessed some constitutional as well as political crisis when Deputy Speaker of National Assembly unconstitutionally thwarted the motion of no confidence moved against Prime Minister Imran Khan by giving unconstitutional ruling in the Assembly.
It is pertinent to mention here that Deputy Speaker citied constitutional article, which gives him parliamentary immunity.
The move, however, plunged the country in severe crisis. In that regard, judiciary intervened and overturned Deputy Speaker’s ruling.
Likewise, both judiciary and democratic ethos have emblematic ties where democracy is a political system in order to choose the government through elections and people’s will, which works for the implementation of constitution and rule of law.
In Pakistan, according to the 1973 Constitution, judiciary is very important pillar of the state, whose job is to ensure implementation of constitutional values.
But, it cannot challenge parliamentary supremacy. The other task of our judiciary is to ensure fundamental rights of the people.
In current political crisis in Pakistan, opposition and government of Prime Minister Imran Khan both were responsible for creating constitutional crisis in the country.
Instead of making the political and constitutional process easier, both parties had created political turmoil in the country, which paved the way for judicial intervention in parliamentary proceedings.
But, thanks to the judiciary who acted in a mature and responsible way by remaining in the constitutional limits.
Similarly, it is not the first time the judiciary’s interference resolved political uncertainty in the country.
We have seen many instances in the past as well where judiciary came to rescue the country’s Constitution.
Unfortunately, some anti-state elements have been trying to malign the country’s institutions over flimsy grounds just to accomplish their political interests.
The political chaos in any state has severe implications for the overall performance of the judiciary.
For example, Chief Justice of Pakistan Justice Umer Atta Bandiyal rightly pointed out that the political cases are a major hurdle in reducing overall pending cases before the apex court.
One must understand that judiciary cannot be alienated and sidelined. It also cannot be ignored being part of this political set-up which involves Constitution and rule of law.
In addition, it is responsibility of the country’s political fraternity to cooperate with judiciary to reduce overall pressure from judicial system of the country.
So, when we talk about judiciary’s freedom, the recent verdict regarding Deputy Speaker’s ruling has once again proved that judiciary in the country is working without any pressure, which is good omen for the judicial freedom in the country.
The government must strengthen our judicial ethos and not to blame judicial fraternity for any political crisis or judicial activism.
If government provides more political stability to judiciary, judicial performance of the country will massively increase.
The role of media is also pivotal in the country with regards to judicial performance. Some paid media elements are also there to criticise the country’s overall judicial performance in order to praise their backers.
The issue is also a major concern for judiciary’s performance. It is immensely required that media fraternity must not view the judicial proceedings through the prism of biasedness.
They may criticise critical verdicts of the courts but in a positive and mature way.
Without the support of political, media and academic fraternity of the country, judicial system cannot prevail.
State institutions must come forward and stop propaganda against judiciary and its verdicts.
The biased criticism over judiciary may create negative consequence for judicial freedom. To conclude my point of view, I must say here that every Judicial system is required to functionally wield what may be referred to as power to judge or power to finally decide what is judged or finally decided is human conduct or decisions or a state of things.
—The writer is Islamabad based regular contributor.
