As the Azadi March moved slowly towards Islamabad and there were reports of arrests and impediments in the flow of traffic, the Supreme Court decided to act as an arbitrator. It passed orders to the government not to raid the homes of PTI workers and immediately release the lawyers who had not been arrested on serious charges. The SC bench hoped that the top PTI leadership would also tell the party supporters not to cause damage to public and private properties. The apex court ordered the committee comprising government and PTI nominees to hold a meeting at 10 pm. It was maintained by the government that while it obeyed the court’s orders, the PTI violated these by marching to G-8 and attacking police vehicles while its nominees failed to turn up to attend the bilateral meeting.
Having resigned from the National Assembly in a fit of rage instead of keeping a watch on the government by sitting on the opposition benches, the PTI wants the SC to play the opposition’ role now. PTI leader Fawad Chaudhry has questioned why the Supreme Court was not constituting a commission to probe the “regime change conspiracy” despite President Arif Alvi having already written to Chief Justice Umar Ata Bandial in this regard. The PTI also wants to challenge the recently passed Elections (Amendment) Act 2022 in court. It wants the apex court to review the appointment of new members of the Election Commission of Pakistan as well as the election of Hamza Shehbaz as Punjab Chief Minister. Meanwhile PTI chief Imran Khan has urged the SC to appoint a monitoring judge to oversee mega corruption cases of politicians.
There is a need on the part of the SC to realise the motives behind the appeals for the judiciary’s intervention In politically sensitive issues that should best be left to Parliament for resolution. A verdict on any politically divisive issue might gratify one side but is liable to be strongly resented by the other. The courts need to realise that they could lose prestige if seen to be partisan.
