CJ Faez’s fate
These legions of hate will not leave CJ Isa. He will never be a darling judge. Or one acceptable to a system that only hugs spineless, compromised men in robes, divorced of probity.
Chief Justice Qazi Faez Isa is under ceaseless attack from all sides, and he is battling it pretty much alone. Though seated in the highest office of the highest court of the land, he is mauled by dirtballs every day. Political mobsters demand his resignation. Paid trolls make humiliating memes about him and his family. And this is happening even when he is hearing petitions about freedom of speech, ordering the invasive arm of the Administration to behave.
The bars and their over 250 thousand lawyers hold forth for the six judges of the High Court who complain of being under pressure from the intelligence agencies and vow to protect the sanctity and independence of the judiciary. But CJ Isa’s round-the-clock hounding and degradation of his person by the clowns of Fakedia does not boil their blood.
Why isn’t anyone sticking the neck out for a man who has cleansed the Supreme Court, slashed down his office’s abusive and arbitrary powers, and brought about such transparency in the functioning of the court, formation of the benches, and case numbering that was unimaginable before him? Why is he getting it in the face even after having declared all his assets? Why is he scandalized even though he comes the closest to meeting the requirements of the judge’s code of conduct that his predecessors and many of his contemporaries fail without a doubt? What can he do to avoid being chased by frothing-at-the-mouth hyenas?
Well, he can’t do better than what he is doing already: reading the Constitution to fake experts; showing overpaid, pompous lawyers their real worth that they often hide in their outsized egos; and keeping his court proceedings tightly within the bounds of the law and substantive citations. He will never find overwhelming support from any quarter because no quarter really likes him.
His biggest detractors are men and women of his profession. There are top judges, serving and retired, whose pettiness and personal corruption he has exposed. There is the Lahore Legal Cartel (LLC) whose Zaman Park and Gymkhana grid binds them to a Devil’s pact of hijacking the whole system. There are ill-read children and aging aunts who are bewitched by the fading scent of a fraud political love. There are legal upstarts in this town of Islamabad who fancy themselves as a cross between John Marshall and al Ghazali but can barely spell jurisprudence correctly. Throw in this mix of politicized bars and sordid remains of the lawyers’ movement against Musharraf and you have a pretty formidable phalanx pitted against CJ Isa. They detest him because he is not one of them. They can’t wait to bring him down because he towers above them. They hate him because he is not Punjabi or a Pathan. Nor even Urdu-speaking. He is from Balochistan.
Every time he writes a judgement or speaks in the court he reminds them all of their inadequacies and under-achievements. Driven by venomous jealousy and poisonous pique, they plan and plan to pull him down and drag him through the mud of controversies. Sometimes of assets. Sometimes of bias. Sometimes of faith. Sometimes of family. The history of his colleagues conspiring to undercut him is well-documented.
This history, which has not ended, is complicated by the nexus that this Lahore Legal Cartel has developed with Imran Khan, the man who unleashed his pack against Justice Isa in the shape of the infamous reference racking him and his family over red hot coals. And while later Imran typically tried to blame it on DG ISI General Faiz and Army Chief General Bajwa you only need to read media reports of those years to know how feisty and joyous PTI and Imran were over his plight and what they all said about him.
This is not to suggest that the Establishment does not have a problem with the man. They had a big problem when he wrote the judgment on the Establishment-funded and PTI-endorsed siege of the capital and insisted that the role of the agencies be regulated through proper legislation and that those engineering such mob attacks be brought to justice. (It is ironic that these demands now form the core of the six judges letter that the PTI is trying to champion!) At that time Justice Isa was treated as if had committed blasphemy. The PTI and Imran were gunning for him day and night. The Imran-piloted reference against him was pushed by the Establishment as a riposte to the his Faizabad judgement.
But his run-in with the Generals started in 2016 when he authored a devastating indictment of the whole system in the Quetta Commission report. His investigations into the tragic terror attack ripped apart the pretension of the Establishment that it had everything figured out in the fight against terrorists. And he made the report public.
That set the tone of his ties with the Establishment and since then it hasn’t been a happy story. Even now he is tolerated because he is not twisted in favor of Imran as his predecessors have been bending over backward to “accommodate their hero”. He brings a professional assertiveness to his handling of judicial affairs that keeps Imran’s manipulation of the system at bay. Minus that, CJ Isa isn’t a horse that the Establishment wants to bet on because they know they can’t rein or saddle him. He is not their type. He is not a call-me-please-me-tell-me-what-to-do category that they are happy dealing with.
His other enemies at constant work are small-time paparazzi-tabloid-gutter press generation members who have grown big without elevating their petty selves because of the new media tools available to them. By ramming into CJ Isa they attract more attention to themselves and earn more money. By vilifying him, they get closer to the PTI which gives them more popularity and they make more money that way too. They are neither into truth nor into dare. It is a dollar game. It is fashionable and profitable to berate the big man in the big seat. This is how lousy lilliputians pose as gorgeous giant slayers.
These legions of hate will not leave CJ Isa. He will never be a darling judge. Or one acceptable to a system that only hugs spineless, compromised men in robes, divorced of probity.
So his best option is to be what he has always been so far. Himself. He is not perfect. No one is. He has his weak moments. He talks longer when he can talk less. He tries to teach constitutional law when he can just focus on the case. He hogs the show when he can let go. But that takes nothing away from his exceptional record as judge and a path-breaking Chief Justice. He is a battling fixer in a badly broken system. He will always be poorly rated by those whose toes he has injured but shall be honored by history. And in the final analysis, that’s the only outcome that counts.
Attention all purveyors of fake news and their devout followers: please refrain from gracing your eyes with the enlightening content of the following article. Wouldn't want facts to ruin your perfectly crafted narrative! 🙄
Absolutely, agreed that resilience and the enduring impact of one's actions often overshadow temporary criticisms. The CJs' contributions to the legal system are indeed substantial, and it's these lasting contributions that will be remembered and valued by history.