The worst form of justice is pretended justice -Plato
However, in my opinion our nation could have accepted even the pretense had our worthy lordships taken pain to at least pretend justice. Watching the reserved seats’ case live from courtroom number one, I only wished that the live transmission of cases from courtrooms had never begun. The courtroom’s divided bench was analogous to stadium benches of the Yankees and Red Sox during a World Series final. I was baffled to witness that honorable lordships’ deterministic observations were less legal and more lethal. The questions raised by honorable members of the bench were less inquisitive and more manipulative. Honorable judges’ remarks were less objective and more subjective. The demeanor of lordships throughout exhaustive court proceedings was less constitutional and more substitutional. Arguing lawyers were made to look like convicts while honorable judges restlessly pleaded the case for and against. In my humble opinion, the presumed legal proceedings conducted under the observation of a full court bench of thirteen honorable judges qualify as the best case of “contempt of court”.
Hooked on the court proceedings I felt that constitutional supremacy, rule of law, and balance of power were purely fictional concepts. The dreadful feelings I sensed felt like an experiential simulation of George Orwell’s dystopian fiction created in his work of genius, 1984. The novel 1984 is about the curse of exploited lives of individuals in a dystopian state of Oceania, presented to its people as a perfect state. The state of Oceania is under the absolute tyrant rule of “Big Brother and his party”. Big Brother controls not only lives and actions of the people of Oceania but also regulates their minds and thoughts. Through introduction of a unique language called “Newspeak,” The party alters established meanings of words and their understanding on conceptual levels. According to Newspeak outright blatant lies spread through the party’s propaganda machinery are the absolute and only existing truth. Institution responsible for torturing citizens who deviate from state designed lifestyle is called “Ministry of Love”. Organization responsible for altering facts of present times and history alike is called the “Truth Ministry”. Even thought of dissent, love, affection, or desire for justice is labeled as “Thought Crime”. Singular permitted option of love, affection, loyalty, and allegiance is one towards big brother and his party, alone. Love, affection, and loyalty in any other manifestation may it be of parents towards children or children towards siblings or parents is considered a betrayal of Big Brother and his party, with dire consequences. The state of Oceania has no laws as laws are considered a restriction on the absolute authority of Big Brother and his party. While unqualified injustice rules in Oceania, twisted justice is affirmed as intrinsic fairness in the state’s official language, newspeak.
Ironically as the court proceedings progressed, I continued to relate more and more to fictional details masterfully attributed to the dystopian world of Oceania, in 1984. It was shocking to see some of the judges hellbent upon mining philosophical meanings of constitutional wordings to ratiocinate judgments they had already drafted in their heads.
For me the entire court proceedings hit the climax when an honorable judge went into exploration of the causational relationship and almost judged the whole election process as unfair and rigged based on social media gossip, proclaimed as his substantiating facts. The honorable judge addressed a plethora of hypothetical questions with heartfelt passion. Unfortunately, none of these questions were either included in the appeal before the court nor were these contested by the aggrieved party or its lawyers before the election commission, Peshawar High Court, and the Supreme Court.
The anticlimax struck when a well-prepared and professionally eloquent lawyer refused to answer irrelevant, suppositional, and beyond-case questions of some of the honorable judges of the bench. While the lawyer’s refusal was strictly within the legal framework and constitutional ambit, and professional demeanor. However, it struck me as a regretful fall from grace for a few honorable judges.
As a concerned citizen of the state, I was dismayed to witness an obvious divide between judges of the bench, not on legal interpretations but political affiliations. Besides witnessing the influence of politics on the conduct of honorable judges, peculiar shades of professional and ethical decadence within the institution of the judiciary were also evident and even more depressing.
I sincerely hope that when the verdict is announced, against all speculations, the bench rises above all perceived biases to stall all speculations, including mine, and deliver a judgment that can become a precedence for legal courts around the world.
Sardar Fida Hussain
The writer is the former Secretary General of Tehreek Suba Hazara.