That the Supreme Court verdict is not only subject to wide interpretation but also wild speculations is a reality that has found its best expression in the 24-page dissenting note of senior puisne judge Jawwad S Khawaja (Chief Justice with effect from August 17, 2015) who has declared that the 21st Amendment is liable to be struck down although the majority of judges ruled, inter alia, that "any order passed, decision taken or sentence awarded under the Pakistan Army Act, 1952...are also subject to the judicial review by the high courts...". It is also important to note that the detractors of SC verdict have relegated it to the league of the verdicts made in cases such as Maulvi Tamizuddin Khan case, Dosso case, Asma Jilani case, Begum Nusrat Bhutto case, Benazir Bhutto case and Zafar Ali Shah case, which were strongly characterised by the doctrine of necessity application.
Although the split judgement has been widely hailed, particularly by the practitioners of politics, it has given birth to some legitimate questions: Why has judiciary consigned itself to an inferior position in state's structure by giving parliament un-fettered and absolute powers of oversight in relation to the business of state? How will the higher judiciary itself, the Executive, including the armed forces, and even the print and electronic media reconcile to the post-verdict situation with the increasing powers of parliament? Hasn't the ideal or conception of Article 232 become illusory after this verdict? Has the verdict responded to a reality that the provinces are struggling to justify the powers that they have acquired while the Centre is finding it increasingly difficult to do business particularly in areas of finance and greater public welfare following the passage of the 18th Constitutional Amendment?
Answers to these and other questions, however less implausible and convincing, could be found in the present situation which shows that the state is faced with extra-ordinary circumstances that require extraordinary solutions or decisions. And, the Supreme Court decision is nothing but a strong reflection of the sentiment that has been dominating the Executive's or armed forces' approach to the challenges of terrorism and extremism in the country; it is also an effort, however feeble, towards minimising the possibilities of dismissal of parliament and governments by the men in khaki by substantively adding to a judgement meticulously penned by Justice Khalilur Rahman Ramday for Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry-led Supreme Court.
The SC verdict also brings to one's mind the noted works of Professor Keith Collard and Professor William Cantwell Smith of 1957 through which they had apprehended the possibility of a breakdown of democracy in Pakistan. Professor Collard had said that `if representative government collapses, it will be because its legs are not strong enough to sustain its own body...Pakistan, by its Constitution, is publicly committed to the operation of democratic institutions. It is too early to say whether those institutions are likely to mature." Even after the passage of nearly 60 years there are legitimate doubts over whether our institutions are mature enough to efficiently protect and preserve their powers that the Justice Nasirul Mulk-led court has bestowed upon them through its "landmark" judgement. The nearly 1000-page verdict has certainly provided us with an opportunity to examine the SC verdict with a sense of importance of certain choices to structure our future in a manner which can be vastly different from the one that we adopted for structuring our past.
The writer is newspaper's News Editor