The Chief Devoid of Justice is gone!

When Chief Justice (R) Saqib Nisar was sworn into the office of the Chief Justice of Pakistan,
there was a positive vibe in the judicial community of the country. The man was known for his through
study of various cases and had come up with remarkable pieces of interpretations of law like PLD
(Pakistan Law Decisions) 808/ 2016 which defined what Federal Government actually means. However,
little did anybody know that the sound judgments which once garnered much respect for him will be
buried somewhere in the annals of PLD books and the man will take an about turn from his previous
demeanor as a judge.

The change in his outlook towards issues changed somewhere in December of 2017 and the rest
we know is a streak of Suo Moto actions entailed by Media hype. It has been a vogue that people tend
to reveal their actual personalities when they are given power and Abraham Lincoln has aptly said,
“Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.”

One of the things which the former Chief Justice enjoyed was media coverage and to make the
most out of it he would work on the principle of reciprocation. The reciprocation would work in a way
that certain Anchors would broach upon an issue in the evening on their talk shows and his Lordship
would take Suo Moto on the same manner, now since media reports were being paid heed to; so the media
knowingly or unknowingly started to cover the Former Judge’s every move. Correspondents were
deployed around the clock so that they do not miss a single word he utters and why should they miss it the
man was dealing with issues that would alter the course of country.

The point where things started to go from bad to worse was when his mindset was made even
before the case was initiated, there have been instances when the Former Judge would pass remarks that
would explicitly display his predisposition towards a certain party or against it and this does not stop just
there he would call BPS- 22 officers and rebuke them harshly and then the next second he would start
laughing and gloat over his absolute power that the powerful position bestowed upon him.

Mr. Saqib Nisar was nothing like the man he was before, when lawyers reminded him of his
previous decisions and wanted him to settle the case as per his earlier judgments he would tell them that
he is ready to review his earlier decisions as well and now he would do things as he pleases. In the last
few months criticism on social media gained pace and posts which suggested that the CJP is doing
everything except for doing his job and that he is not trying to look after the pending cases which are
gathering dust in the store rooms of the apex court further infuriated him. To solve this issue of pending
cases his Lordship came up with an idea to dismiss the cases without hearing the parties, at instances the
parties could not reach the rostrum to argue and the case was already dismissed and according to him the
cases were being decided as per the wishes of people who were criticizing him to pay attention to the
pending cases.

Reforms are not and cannot be brought overnight under duress, concrete steps are required to
build base on which the edifice of strong institutions can be built, such experiments and the people who
envisioned such illusive dreams to turn the things around overnight are not able to achieve long lasting
results and become a part of history never to be quoted in positive context. May be the Former Chief
Justice should have gone not too far back in the history and had learned a lesson from the misadventures
of Iftikhar Chaudhary but he decided not to learn from the past and was condemned to repeat it.

From collecting funds for the dams under force from organizations and people to letting Imran
Khan get his Banigala residence regularized, from letting Rao Anwar go scot free to humiliating doctors
who had been on duty for long hours. He had been inebriated with so much power that he did not consider
anyone to have any respect and even Prime Ministers were given their share of rebuke from him if things
did not go as per his aspirations.

On the second last day of his incumbency he claimed that Pakistan’s Justice system is the best in
the world and only a few weeks ago he admitted that I have failed to rectify the judicial system and still
lacunae are left, by doing so the Mr. Saqib Nisar had realized that he had failed miserably to perform the
job he was entrusted with and to cover up his failure he issued a statement that no level headed man was
ready to digest.

Pakistan has been through a roller coaster ride since Mr. Nisar picked up the gauntlet of Self-
righteousness and decided that he and only he possessed the mental capabilities which were required for
the country to be put back on track. Such actions may apparently seem to be putting things in order but in
the longer run they create tension among the institutions, Pakistan’s democracy had hardly come out of
the shadows of Military Martial Laws and now it has been put under the shadow of Judicial activism
come Judicial Martial Law. History has been and will be the best judge but by the look of it Mr. Saqib
Nisar will not be praised for his populist and irrational judicial spree.