No one can deny the commendability of the role Chief Justice Saqib Nisar has played in gracing Pakistan’s judicial history with a judgment that has not fallen short of its projected memorability. The bench head Justice Khosa had promised to deliver a verdict that in its comprehensiveness and objectivity will be remembered and quoted for two decades. Justice Ijaz Afzal had gone a step further, and said it would be the Judgment of the Century.
The credit for forming a bench that had the vision to arrive at such a historic judgment goes to the Chief Justice. But I personally can’t help disagreeing with his statement that the dissenting notes are mere dissenting notes.
Not so my lord—Each of the judges has written a separate judgment on the merits of the case. And each judge in his own right is the Supreme Court. If there had been no bench—and just one judge, either Justice Khosa, or Justice Gulzar, or Justice Ijaz Afzal, or Justice Ijazul Hassan or Justice Azmat had heard the case and written separate judgments, each judgment would have been considered the judgment of the Supreme Court. Thus the dissenting notes of the two dissenting judges cannot be dismissed as simply dissenting notes. They are judgments in then own right. Both Justice Khosa and Justice Gulzar have declared in their wisdom that having failed to be “Sadiq” and “Ameen” Mian Nawaz Sharif stands disqualified. The judgments of Justice Ijaz Afzal, Justice Azmat Saeed and Justice Ijazul Hassan happen to be equally emphatic regarding the Prime Minister’s failure to prove his integrity. The dissent is only on JIT. Two judges don’t agree with the majority that there is need for a JIT to investigate the Prime Minister’s integrity any further. But they have respected the opinion of the majority and signed the final verdict as the Judgment of the Supreme Court of Pakistan.
Mian Nawaz Sharif has won two months to prove with solid evidence (to be produced through the JIT) that the honourable judges have been wrong.
That is how I read the verdict.
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