Islamabad, Pakistan: Since the announcement of the decision of the Full Bench of the Supreme Court of Pakistan that annulled the decision of the Peshawar High Court and the Election Commission in the case of the reserved seats of the Sunni Ittehad Council to declare the PTI entitled to the reserved seats, several debates, and discussions can be viewed at television screens and read in media and social media platforms. After this decision, workers of the ruling PMLN staged a protest on Expressway Islamabad and halted vehicular traffic flow for some minutes through the only power show that the ruling party arranged in the federal capital. This act was like slapping your face when a rival had already bled your nose with an iron fist.
The ruling party is trying to build a narrative that the decision of the Supreme Court would not change the power balance in the National Assembly as the ruling alliance still has the support of 209 seats in the National Assembly, while the opposition has 103 members. After the implementation of the decision of the Supreme Court, the opposition will get 22 special seats in the National Assembly, after which the number of opposition members will increase to 125. But despite the court decision, 209 seats will remain with the led government in the center. This is a true picture but with a catch—the ruling alliance will lose a chance to have the two-thirds majority in the National Assembly that is needed for Constitutional amendments until and unless a forward bloc within PTI is not created that would be in a position to help the government to support whenever it would be needed for any Constitutional amendment. Creating a forward bloc is not very difficult now because 39 members who mentioned in their candidacy form mentioned they were from PTI while the rest of the 41 did not write such therefore they can form a forward bloc or even join any other party within 15 days provided by the court’s decision. Will a PTI forward bloc fizzle out political chaos in the country or would it increase the confusion more, is an important question.
Additionally, the decision has testified again that PTI always gets what PTI even does not pray for and is still a blue-eyed boy of the higher judiciary. Reasons could be several including that unseen powers behind PTI could have some material that could be harmful to some members of the higher judiciary if such material is public, it can be the charisma of the PTI slur brigade that has exceptional power to lynch anybody in virtual domain, the reason can be too weak political footage of ruling parties who have failed to fight PTI not only at virtual domain rather in physical domain as well because their workers are too thin to protest against alleged highhandedness of higher judiciary. Moreover, the federal budget 2024-25 consolidated the cliché that PMLN is not the party of the common man because the budget beyond any doubt is a budget of elites and has injected further hatred among the public against the entire political as well as administrative system. According to a common man, the budget serves only state employees, powerful bureaucrats, rich traders, and filthy rich businessmen. Whatever the reason is, ruling parties are losing moral writ, political courage, and public support to rule the country. It is believed that they would continue to stay in power and would continue to earn more hatred from the public.
Even after losing the moral battle, the ruling alliance still believed that the Supreme Court’s decision would backfire and PTI would not become the single largest party in the National Assembly because there would soon be a PTI forward bloc. Will it not ignite further hatred against the parliamentary system among the public and more sympathies for PTI?
Those within the ruling party who think that the government will win the appeal against the decision still live in a fool’s paradise because the higher judiciary is clear that it would continue to work as a Panchayat system instead of working under written jurisprudence and the Constitution. Therefore, expecting anything constitutional from the higher judiciary can be the wildest dream. The rewriting of the Constitution has been categorically seen for long and it seems things will not change in the future either. The SC has directed the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to ask PTI members to submit forms indicating what party they want to join within 15 days (although the Constitution 1973 gives only three days to a candidate to choose his/her party after winning as an independent candidate). This fifteen days arrangement triggers a conspiracy theory that the higher judiciary has favored the ruling party to manage to create a forward bloc within the PTI, however, the only time would determine the fate of this theory but it is perceivable that the decision has further eroded moral status of the higher judiciary that has always rewrites the Constitution in favor of PTI. In the past, the higher judiciary helped PTI to come into power forcibly, and even now helping PTI when PTI is standing against those who forcibly launched it on the nation. In the past ‘Black Law Dictionary’ was used to send the then prime minister Nawaz Sharif out of power and now constitutional clauses were sat aside for raising PTI as the single largest party in the National Assembly as well as in the Senate (now KP Assembly would go for Senate voting soon).
Legal experts believe that the decision of the Supreme Court has made the matter more complicated for the future because clause D of Article 51 is very clear that women and minority seats can be given only to parties that are on the list and which have provided the lists to the ECP. PTI neither applied for reserved seats under Article 104 nor challenged for reserved seats in ECP but got seats in a writ petition where there was no pray for seats and even PTI was not the petitioner. Jurisprudentially, when the Supreme Court reviews anything under Article 185, it is generally limited to petitions that reach the Supreme Court from a lower court. The Supreme Court set aside the Peshawar High Court judgment without hearing the members who were allotted reserved seats. The 80 members mentioned in the court neither appeared in the court nor claimed that they belonged to PTI. The SC decision has raised an important question that is what kind of kind of political and administrative is in the country? Is there any special system crafted by the several decisions of the higher judiciary in contradiction with the Constitution or does Pakistan still have a parliamentary System?
In Parliamentary democracy, all the institutions are under the Constitution of Pakistan which is the supreme structure in which the boundaries and limitations of all institutions are clear in which the function of the Executive is to legislate and implement, and the function of the Judiciary is to deliver justice. The judiciary has always had a stand that judicial affairs are interfered with by the institutions while the reality appears to be opposite. History is a witness that like-minded judges have damaged democracy with arbitrary decisions and it is becoming a system instead of being an institution that is supposed to work within the parameters of the Constitution. The constant interference in the parliament and rewriting of the constitution is leading to a situation where one can say that the judiciary has become the ‘absolute power’ in Pakistan while the Parliament and even the Armed forces have surrendered to the judiciary because in many instances judiciary has not only intervened into the operations of armed forces rather barred them to work (reference Trial of civil in Military courts). It may be appropriate to say that the higher judiciary seems to be paralyzing all other constitutional institutions and the parliament with the use of its power.
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It is clear from the judgment given by the Hon’ble Judiciary regarding the reserved seats that the Supreme Judiciary is now in conflict not only with the Armed Forces but also with the Parliament which is supposed to frame or amend the Constitution but is not ready to face any kind of accountability even in such cases where educational degrees of the judges of higher courts are under questioned and clamped people under ‘Contempt’ who demand inquiry in alleged fake degrees (Tariq Mehmood Jahangiri degree controversy).
Parliamentarians are the bigger losers under this new Panchayat system introduced by the higher judiciary but they are non-reactive due to many reasons and one of the reasons is that they have lost their moral credibility of being representatives of the public because they are serving everybody except the public.
Disclaimer:
The views and opinions expressed in this article/Opinion/Comment are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the DND Thought Center and Dispatch News Desk (DND). Assumptions made within the analysis are not reflective of the position of the DND Thought Center and Dispatch News Desk News Agency.
