After the results of the SC polls are in, Tarar anticipates the political problem will “worsen.”
The position of the coalition government, according to the minister of law, is “very clear” on “how the Supreme Court is being run.”
Azam Nazeer Tarar, the law minister, stated on Tuesday that the coalition government was “absolutely clear” in its opposition to “how the Supreme Court (SC) is being run,” and that the most recent decision regarding the Punjab elections would only exacerbate the political crisis the nation is currently experiencing.
He expressed regret for the decision of the three-member bench on the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) petition challenging the delay of the Punjab Assembly elections by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), telling a press conference after the SC announced the decision that a full court should have presided over the proceedings.
He also voiced concerns about the newly assembled six-member bench that later that day decided a suo moto case after Justice Qazi Faez Isa wrote a ruling in it ordering the adjudication of suo moto cases to be postponed until changes were made to the SC Rules 1980 regarding the chief justice’s discretionary authority to form benches.
He said that the action supports the government’s position in favor of “the judgment of the three-member bench headed by Justice Isa barring hearing of suo motu cases until a full court meeting is held or the process of lawmaking against Article 184(3) of the Constitution is finished.”
“The three-member bench, led by CJ Bandial, rejected the orders of the three-member bench, written by Justice Isa. Then, in a startling turn of events, they felt the need to immediately appoint a six-member bench, believing that the circular was insufficient to address the issue.
“This is yet more evidence of what various attorneys and lawmakers, as well as the Attorney General and the Election Commission’s lawyer’s argument yesterday highlighted, that the law, the constitution, and judicial propriety demands that the [polls delay] case should be decided only after settling the previous case first,” the attorney said.
He emphasized that the government has insisted that the ruling was actually 4-3 ever since the day the judgment mandating elections in accordance with presidential directives occurred.
The minister noted that “four reputable judges declared that they regard the processes to be outside the scope of 184(3)” and that the petitions “were not maintainable,” in reference to the Supreme Court ruling about the elections in Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.
“When the written decisions arrived, it was crystal evident that four judges had dismissed the petitions that are currently on the case file, while three honorable justices had ruled that the petitions were maintainable,” he stated.
The biggest evidence in support of the two judges’ recusal, according to Tarar, is the fact that their views are not included in the court file.
The law minister emphasized that when a “discrepancy” was discovered, a whole court should have looked into the matter to clear up the misunderstanding, but this did not occur.
He stated, “The AGP recommended another possibility yesterday [Monday], that a six or seven-member bench be composed of those judges who have not yet spoken their opinion on the case. He regretted, nevertheless, that “that too was denied.”
He stated, “This is allowed for the perception that the institution is divided, and to put an end to differences is the duty of the leader of the organization.”
The second-most senior judge was regularly barred from sitting on the benches with other honorable justices, Tarar bemoaned, “How judgements have been given in critical constitutional issues, how benches are being constructed, how a senior puisne judge is being kept away from all the things.”
“Emergency choice”
Federal Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah told the media in a statement prior to the SC ruling that the option of an emergency was still included in the document.
The minister predicted that there wouldn’t be a ruling in the Punjab polls delay case that would spark a national crisis while speaking to media outside the supreme court.
He went on to say that there could not be justice if four justices abstained from a suo motu hearing and emphasized that the constitution still provided for the declaration of an emergency.
According to Sana, the establishment of a full bench to hear the case was demanded by all parties, and the PTI had no concerns either.
He asserted that the entire nation looked to the Chief Justice of Pakistan for justice and questioned what was wrong with the call for a full bench formation.
He claimed that a fitna agent had worked hard to drive the nation toward disaster in a barely veiled allusion to PTI leader Imran Khan.
