On Thursday, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf's (PTI) Information Secretary Shafqat Mehmood urged the Supreme Court (SC) to initiate contempt of court proceedings against former Prime Minister (PM) Nawaz Sharif for declaring an anti-judiciary drive. PTI's believes that the SC is showing restraint in the case of Nawaz Sharif and he should be punished for maligning the judiciary and his contemptuous remarks against them. While the respect of judiciary is of utmost importance in any state and PTI is right that maligning of the SC is not right, but there are so many reasons why PTI's push for a contempt of court case against Nawaz Sharif is wrong.

Since the opening of the Panama Case, the judiciary of the country is being involved in several political matters. Cases upon cases are being filed in an attempt to bring the other party down. What this does is politicises the institution which should remain objective in all matters. At the same time, resolving all political battles in court takes away the actual on ground political debates that these two parties should be indulging in.

In the past year, both parties have not had the space or time to debate out issues which advertently affect the system. With the new elections approaching, the policies which both parties plan to follow have not been highlighted. All the battles are being fought through the courts, which at this point leaves the average voter confused as to what actually do the leaders plan to do with the crises of the country. There is no talk about how they are going to divide the budget, deal with the deterioration in the quality of education, the threats to CPEC and the growing International pressure to oblige to the demands of the United States of America (USA).

Pakistan cannot afford another case being dragged into the court. It is about time we move on and debate out relevant issues. It is the job of the SC to initiate contempt of court cases and it is very much capable of doing so. The Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Mian Saqib Nisar clearly asked PTI and PML-N to not malign the SC and refrain from commenting on the decisions made by it after the Tareen and Khan verdict. Hence, it would be intelligent to follow that demand and not act on behalf of the judiciary. It is about time that the parties end these judicial wars.