Near the end of last year, the editor of Prism asked me whether I would be interested in writing a review of the year’s major decisions given by the Pakistani judiciary. I consented, yet have since been unable to write the promised article for which he had supplied me with a meticulously complied timeline of dates and decisions along with articles accompanying them. I did have a clear idea that any article that covers the year past or the one ahead must focus on three elements — our judiciary and what it’s been up to, the establishment and its perceived influence, and the politicians and their complicity or suffering.

You want a year in a nutshell? We are engineering for a new government to be run by the same family we engineered to replace last time, while the state is currently busy prosecuting its last hero and his spouse for adultery on the witness statement of the servant of the spouse’s former spouse.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court is having its respect policed by a JIT — formed at the behest of the bar council — which has issued notices to journalists to answer for their commentary. We are all told to be careful about our speech, while our liberty after speech currently hinges upon an undertaking offered by the attorney-general in court which allows for fair criticism. The decision of fairness of the critique can obviously be taken by the JIT’s members because no one has challenged that yet in original jurisdiction and the court feels itself bound by procedure at this point. Chief Justice Qazi Faez Isa has, meanwhile, wondered aloud while hearing the case what the big deal is when you’re summoned to answer for yourself by the FIA — and has reminded journalists that they have been flogged and whipped in public in the past.

If you visit the Supreme Court, a pall of uncertainty hangs over all the staff and officers, who shake their heads when you ask them about how the feel of the place is these days. A senior judge has spoken about press freedom at a conference which doesn’t square with the view espoused by the CJP-led bench hearing journalist freedom cases. Separately, two senior judges have led benches that have given election-related decisions where the commentary clearly holds the right of the people to choose supreme, no matter the technical lacunae — a position that is divergent from the one taken by the CJP-led bench which found technical peace in letting the ECP rip the PTI to pieces.

On the criminal law front, hot off the press are two decisions related to former prime minister Imran Khan. In the Official Secrets Act case, he is accused of losing a cipher document which carries a sentence of two years, only if your actions led to a government cipher code being compromised. But because this wasn’t enough, he has instead been........

© Dawn Prism