Six judges and a bullfight

The Establishment is determined to hit back. And hit back hard. There is anger. There is frustration.

The Establishment is determined to hit back. And hit back hard. There is anger. There is frustration. Dismay too, but no evidence to suggest that the country’s deep state is shaken by the Islamabad High Court’s six-judges’ letter alleging wide-ranging and ongoing effort to manipulate the judicial process for certain type of outcomes.

I am told that the so-called charges in the letter are gibberish and contrived to protect “mega corruption” that involves at least two of the six men in the robes. I am told the letter is a deliberate distraction and aims to muddy the waters of serious investigations. There are proofs, I am told, and these are undeniable.

It is not clear if it is bravado, a counter propaganda punch or fact. But the deep state is surely gearing up to strike back. For them the letter has documented really nothing. This is kind of surprising considering that there are paras that clearly talk about at least two sector commanders and the DG ISI himself reaching out, engaging or requesting to engage judges and allegedly trying to influence the outcomes of either pending proceedings or the shape of finalised judgements. So were there no meetings?

This is author's own copy of the letter that has his own observations and takeaways jotted down.

This is responded to with a rhetorical question? Do you really think that these judges never meet us or we never meet them in the line of normal work? Do you think that these engagements are always sought by us and not by them?

But there are allegations of blackmail, abductions, coercion, threats, pressure on relatives and friends? What about that? Comes another rhetorical question for an answer? So there must be proofs that a certain person went and met a certain judge and asked for a certain favour, where are these? Will they bring these proofs out, if they have them? But if you ask us, we can give plenty of proofs of the favours that some of them ask from us, for themselves, their relatives, and their friends. Things we know, they don’t.

That begs the question however that these judges have framed all these “meetings, encounters, meet-ups and unfriendly engagements” as a structured attempt to browbeat the Islamabad High Court and suck out its independence.

Have they made a mistake? Are they bluffing? We don’t know. All we know at this point is that the six judges appeal to the Supreme Judicial Council to take up the matter has huge legal problems since this particular judicial body is not entitled to probe such matters. It can only do an inquiry into allegations of misconduct against judges and decide their fate.

This legal point is a huge consideration for the Establishment whose members are convinced that the letter’s other big aim is to purge the Islamabad High Court of its current chief justice. I am told that the problem that these six judges have with the Islamabad High Court Chief Justice is not that he is pro-Establishment. The problem is that for these judges has with the chief justice is that he is not pro-PTI enough. That he does not indulge Imran Khan enough. That he is not anti-Establishment enough. And that is why, like a coloured sparrow, he is being picked out for pecking by the rest. That’s what I am told.

The Establishment also sees other reasons for this onslaught including cheap publicity, political endorsement from the PTI, and interestingly, to influence the Supreme Court in the backdrop of the just-decided case of Justice Shaukat Aziz Siddiqi to peddle PTI’s political agenda—the attack the Establishment—using these allegations.

Some of the above suggestions have short legs and frankly don’t walk. I mean the judges have no doubt become celebrities overnight —mind you most of them have negligible contribution to jurisprudence of any kind—but they have made a massive move. Are they all lying and pretending and angling for goals that have nothing to do with the independence of the judiciary? I am told nothing in response to this analysis except the usual end-of-conversation four-worder: you will soon know.

Hopefully, yes. The nation has enough traumas to process. Seeing judges take on the security establishment and politicians jumping in to maximise their gains is something we can certainly do without. But from the looks of it, this trauma can extend into a lingering, expanding crisis. The closure wont come soon. More dirt most certainly will.