THE government continues to try and play games with the Supreme Court and thanks to the collective wisdom of the judges in the apex court, it stands exposed every time. Clearly the government is not serious about implementing any SC decision and on the 18th Amendment case it is merely playing for time with probably no clear endgame in mind. That is the kindest explanation one can offer given the performance of the Federal legal team. On Thursday one of their members tried to argue that there was no basic structure of the Constitution and the SC could not strike down any amendment made in the Constitution on this pretext. So the SC had to remind the lawyer that there were three different Judgements reaffirming the basic structure of the Constitution and the Rabbani-led Committee had also conceded as much. It was sad to see a lawyer of the SC having to be reminded about Article 189 of the Constitution by one of the Justices which made it obligatory on everyone to obey the courts decisions. All the government lawyer could do was to declare threateningly that if the SC struck down the 18th Amendment, there was the possibility of a bloodbath. More interesting was the same lawyers plea that had General Zia been tried under Article 6 for subverting and abrogating the Constitution, Martial Laws could have been blocked. He also called for Musharrafs trial under the same Article. This raised a critical question from Justice Jawwad to the lawyer that since he was representing the state perhaps he could explain to the Court who was restricting the government from initiating Musharrafs trial? This left the federal legal team member nonplussed. Of course, if one is to deal with Zia as the state lawyer sought, in the manner in which the British dealt with Oliver Cromwell whom they dug from his grave and hanged for the crime of storming the Parliament along with his troops, then it would be more appropriate to begin with the first man on horseback, Ayub Khan who began the disruptive and debilitating trend of military interventions and Martial laws. Also, one wonders what sort of penalty there would be for the storming of the apex court of the state by a gang of political workers? Certainly, some interesting constitutional issues are being raised and the final judgment on some of these may finally lay down the roots of a strong and steadfast democratic state structure where every pillar of the state has clearly delineated roles and functions as well as bounds. Meanwhile, the Judiciary continues to inspire hope in the nation that their pleas will be heard and justice will prevail at the end of the day. It is too bad the government continues to play games to circumvent the course of justice by using all manner of tactics to evade implementation of SC decisions. However, the more they go down this path, the more exposed they are and soon an innocent voice may be heard yelling: Look the emperor has no clothes on