It all started unravelling in the courtroom on April 30 when a bench of the Supreme Court started debating the letter sent by six judges of the IHC as also the proposals received from the provincial high courts regarding the contents of the original communication.

Purposeful statements were made by judges of the bench who all seemed to agree that there had indeed been intervention in the matters of the courts from the outside and some mechanism needed to be developed to stop this. Genuine urgency seemed to stir their depositions.

The inputs received from the high courts in Lahore, Quetta, Peshawar, and Karachi further confirmed such interventions as a matter of routine. They also urged the chief justice to take steps to remedy the malfunction effectively.

An entire clan of judges has however acknowledged intervention from outside and strongly recommended a combination of corrective measures as operational checks and balances and introducing punitive measures for those from the executive and the agencies who would be guilty of such intervention.

The sentiments of the judges are reflective of a silent revolution that is brewing within the judiciary. Keeping in mind the complicit role that the institution has played in the past alongside other institutions in facilitating military rules leading to uninterrupted intervention in the political affairs, the current thinking appears nothing short of a miracle.

Coming on the heels of the other silent........

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