Judiciary should not try to become rulers

[EjazR]

Daily Times - Leading News Resource of Pakistan

ISLAMABAD: The judiciary must check any excesses and act against the exercise of arbitrary power and abuse of discretion. However, it must not lose sight of the fact that its duty is to adjudicate, not to rule, Attorney General Latif Khosa said on Monday. Addressing a ceremony held at the Supreme Court to mark the beginning of the new judicial year, he said the court must maintain a balance between liberty and order.

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

SC constitutionally bound to intervene if institutions cross limits: CJP​

* Court respects, supports democratic institutions
* Country looking to judiciary to stop future abrogation of constitution
* New judges appointed on merit despite political pressure

By Masood Rehman

ISLAMABAD: Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry on Monday said the superior judiciary has been entrusted with the unique responsibility of ensuring that all state institutions function within their jurisdiction.

Addressing a ceremony held at the Supreme Court (SC) to mark the beginning of the judicial year 2009-10, he said the SC and high courts were bound to intervene in accordance with their constitutional powers to protect the rights of the people if any state institution crossed its limits.

Supports: He said the court respects and supports all democratic institutions and elected officials in the performance of their duties, which are necessary for good governance and the political development of the country.

The CJP said people were looking to the judiciary to take steps, which would close the door on any intruder trying to step in and abrogating the constitution.

Merit only: He regretted that constitutional consultees for the appointment of judges at the superior judiciary had been heavily pressurised. However, he said no one had succumbed to the pressure and the selection had been made purely on merit.

Daily Times - Leading News Resource of Pakistan

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I'll side with the CJP here. The judiciary's job is to interpret the constitution and to adjudicate upon the constitutionality of issues brought to its attention.

When you add in the principle of 'Suo Motu', that then means that the judiciary can also on its own volition take action, in terms of adjudicating on constitutionality, against issues that come to its attention.

 

[muse]

The judiciary's job is to interpret the constitution and to adjudicate upon the constitutionality of issues brought to its attention.

When you add in the principle of 'Suo Motu', that then means that the judiciary can also on its own volition take action, in terms of adjudicating on constitutionality, against issues that come to its attention

That's not at issue, what is at issue is the that constitutionally it is Majlis, and not SC, that makes laws -- it's Majlis that exercises sovereign will, not the SC.

When the SC under the present CJ washes clean a politician such as Nawaz, when the CJ is partisan, to the extent that the SC is not credible, either the CJ has to step down or it will create a existentuial crisis for the republic.

 

[Evil Flare]

Politician allowed to Work on Constitutional Boundaries ..

if they cross That Limits , SC has Constitutional Duty to Intervene ..

 

[muse]

LEGISLATORS, aka, lawmakers, sit in the Majlis, not the SC. Unfortunately, when uneducated persons are allowed to sit in Majlis, neither laws are made or refined, nor the judiciary given guidance.

 

[muse]

Editorial: Judiciary and distribution of powers

Addressing a ceremony to mark the New Judicial Year in Islamabad on Monday, the Chief Justice of Pakistan, Mr Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, stated that “the Supreme Court of Pakistan (SC) is authorised to interfere if any state organ transgresses its parameters as spelled out in the Constitution”.

The honourable chief justice made it very clear that “it is constitutionally binding on all state organs to work within the parameters laid down in the Constitution”. But after that he also added: “The Court wants that political institutions, elected representatives and government officials should perform their duties in a befitting manner which was very critical for good governance, socio-economic development and political development”.

Does this observation allow the higher judiciary to extend its activism to matters of governance too? Looking at the judicial landscape in Pakistan, it appears that in fact it has. And this is nothing specific to Pakistan. Third world governance standards are so low that the courts have been known, as in India, to intervene and lay down executive rules that they didn’t touch in the past.

In Pakistan, however, there is also the matter of the “suo motu notice”. One was given to understand earlier that only the Supreme Court could resort to suo motu proceedings. But we now also have the high courts adjudicating governance on the basis of newspaper headlines, as alleged by the sugar millers. Remarks from the bench imply that if the executive ignores its obligations under economic governance, the Court will take action in the public interest.

Is the judiciary biting off more than it can chew and committing, in the process, what the Chief Justice calls “state organ transgression”? How far is a suo motu proceeding on the setting of prices in Punjab within the ambit of the prescribed power of the judiciary? The provincial and federal governments, after expressing mild surprise at the court directive on sugar prices, have both committed themselves to taking action on it. But their action may spell disaster for the economy.

It was the duty of the executive to agree a “reasonable” price with the sugar producers — other interventions have failed in a free market economy — and it did carry it out. At the rate of Rs 45 per kg ex-factory, it would have seemed more than reasonable as against India’s Rs 50 per kg ex-factory, taking into account that the Indian rupee has almost three-quarter more value than the Pakistani rupee. In Afghanistan, the rate being quoted is Rs 60!

In India, the quarrel between the judiciary and the executive was sorted out in a meeting earlier this year between the judges of the higher judiciary and the chief ministers, presided over jointly by the chief justice and the prime minister. In Pakistan it appears that the judiciary-executive turf battle has just started. Since the judiciary has been restored in favour of what the people wanted, there is universal public and government approval of what the honourable judges decide. It will therefore be easy for the higher courts to treat the matter with objectivity.

The national economy is a particularly perilous terrain on which to trespass. Most Pakistanis and especially the hosts on TV channels are hostile to the idea of “slavery” to external manipulation; and they include the IMF routinely in the list of “enemies” of the nation. Forgetting that they are living inside a free market economy, most embrace the mythical idea of a “welfare state”, another name for negative growth and unsustainable deficits. Public hostility to privatisation and ignorance of its principles too should be disabused by the losses that Pakistan Steel Mills are making today.

Two other significant opinions were expressed in the same ceremony. The president of the Supreme Court Bar Association, Mr Ali Ahmad Kurd, said: “Nothing has changed since the restoration of the deposed judiciary...the attitude and behaviour of judges remains the same from top to bottom”. The Attorney General of Pakistan, Sardar Latif Khan Khosa, on the other hand stated: “[The judiciary] must not lose sight of the fact that its duty is to adjudicate, not to rule”.

The idea of justice is at stake in Pakistan. In the West, the process of “redressal” has won over the concept of “revenge”. Pakistan has seen redressal in the shape of the reinstatement of the judiciary. It is divided over the idea of “punishment”, and there are strong arguments on both sides. But justice is never embodied in the “punishment” the people want because the common man has ‘revenge’ on his mind when he approaches the court