It is a new day in a new Supreme Court of Pakistan (SCP). Led by Chief Justice Qazi Faez Isa, the SCP now appears to be making noble efforts to reintroduce some order into our judicial system.

Not that there was no order previously, but the steps that some of the former chief justices took betrayed their innocence.

On March 22, the Supreme Court set aside the dismissal of former Islamabad High Court (IHC) judge Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui, and by doing so added another feather to its cap. Just to recap: in January this year, a five-member bench including the CJ and Justices Aminuddin Khan, Jamal Mandokhel, Syed Hasan Rizvi, and Irfan Saadat reserved its verdict on Siddiqui’s plea against his removal.

Credit goes to the court for broadcasting the proceedings of the case live on the SC’s website. The former judge had challenged a decision by the Supreme Judicial Council (SJD), dismissing him from service.

It is worth recalling that right after assuming power in 2018, the PTI government and its leader, Imran Khan, initiated a relentless attempt to acquire absolute power by crushing the opposition and intimidating other state organs. In its effort, the PTI government reportedly had support from the most significant quarters of power in the country.

Even the SJC, willingly or unwillingly, appeared to be toeing the official line. Accusations against Justice Siddiqui revolved around a speech he delivered at the Rawalpindi Bar Association. A major charge against Justice Siddiqui was that he had accused intelligence services of influencing the court proceedings and forming benches of choice. It was not an entirely new accusation, as in the past, we had seen the judiciary of Pakistan crack under pressure from the civil and military bureaucracy.

In the 1950s, the CJ Munir-led Supreme Court that Chief Justice Munir led set the tone for the future line of action that........

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