{"id":31415,"date":"2018-10-27T13:28:28","date_gmt":"2018-10-27T07:58:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=31415"},"modified":"2018-10-27T13:28:28","modified_gmt":"2018-10-27T07:58:28","slug":"in-different-courts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/in-different-courts\/","title":{"rendered":"In different courts"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/todays-paper\/tp-opinion\/in-different-courts\/article22697035.ece\"><b>In different courts<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n<p><b>Context:<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Nawaz Sharif, the former Prime Minister of Pakistan, who has been debarred from public office by the Supreme Court of Pakistan, is <\/span><b>not just fighting back, but has been strengthened by the huge public response that he has been receiving <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">as he takes his case to the people with elections due in the next few months.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>The issue:<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Nawaz Sharif, main argument has been that his <\/span><b>dismissal is an outrage to the will of the people<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, and that the <\/span><b>Supreme Court has delegitimised their democratic voice<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Recent disqualifications:<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is <\/span><b>not only Mr. Sharif who has been removed<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> from the Prime Minister\u2019s Office by the Supreme Court.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> In recent years \u00a0in 2012 so was <\/span><b>Yousuf Raza Gilani<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), who had been elected following Benazir Bhutto\u2019s assassination, when the PPP formed the government in 2008.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Moreover, following Mr. Sharif\u2019s ouster in July 2017, <\/span><b>one Senator of his party, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PMLN),<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> has also been disqualified for making statements against Supreme Court judges.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> And <\/span><b>two ministers have been issued notices for contempt of court<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, and asked to present themselves at the Supreme Court to explain themselves, also for making statements against the Supreme Court judges.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Military dominance:<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">With Pakistan <\/span><b>dominated by the military for many decades<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, all conspiracy theories regarding changes in government, or the dismissal of Prime Ministers, <\/span><b>naturally land on the military\u2019s door.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Hence, many retired generals and analysts stated, without offering any proof, that Mr. Sharif&#8217;s dismissal by the Supreme Court was on the <\/span><b>behest of the military, rather than a decision made independently by the court.<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>\u2018Doctrine of Necessity\u2019:<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In the past when the military has rightly been seen as Pakistan\u2019s <\/span><b>main anti-democratic institution,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> it had always been the Supreme Court which provided constitutional cover to military regimes.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Under a notion of the \u2018<\/span><b>Doctrine of Necessity\u2019<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, the Supreme Court legitimised the three military takeovers \u2014 in <\/span><b>1958, 1977 and 1999.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Each time, while the military regime differed as did its actions, the Court came to support such anti-democratic intervention, <\/span><b>allowing ample space for military rule in Pakistan.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For almost all of Pakistan&#8217;s history, the Supreme Court has been <\/span><b>complicit in military rule in Pakistan.<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Inflexion point:<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But since 2007, following great popular support, the <\/span><b>judiciary had acquired considerable respect for its independence and pro-democratic position and statements,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> declaring on numerous occasions that it would never again support or condone a military takeover.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Recent interventions have been made on <\/span><b>a number of rape cases, of those regarding the disappeared, and even in cases of extra-judicial killings.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Such activism has made the judiciary <\/span><b>immensely popular in the public mind.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The fact that the military has been publicly criticised \u2014 by scholars, social media participants and politicians \u2014 in recent years gives <\/span><b>some indication of the relative denuding of power and hegemony of the military in Pakistan.<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Conclusion:<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">While Prime Ministers have been debarred and dismissed, and Ministers and Senators hauled up in front of the court, an undertrial military dictator is absconding with much ease and living in luxury abroad.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Failing to address this key case makes one suggest that it seems that the judiciary has been more concerned with the contempt of court, rather than the contempt of the Constitution.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In different courts Context: Nawaz Sharif, the former Prime Minister of Pakistan, who has been debarred from public office by the Supreme Court of Pakistan, is not just fighting back, but has been strengthened by the huge public response that he has been receiving as he takes his case to the people with elections due&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/in-different-courts\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">In different courts<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-test-1","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704786367},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31415","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31415"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31415\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}