Recent global events have dampened the enthusiasm of “the proponents of autocratic rule”, Justice Faez Isa of Pakistan’s Supreme Court said, stressing the importance of having “checks and balances” and the need to uphold “human rights to everyone.” 

“We are reminded that it is so important to have checks and balances and uphold human rights of everyone; if we do not do so our political order may crumble after an onslaught too,” Justice Isa said during a memorial lecture on “Pakistani judiciary and its role in upholding rights and processes” at London’s SOAS University while paying tribute to late Asma Jahangir, one of Pakistan’s most prominent advocates of human rights.  

A lawyer by profession, Asma Jahangir was one of the most powerful human rights and women rights activists, and a force behind many landmark judgments in Pakistan, a country with a chequered history when it comes to rights.    

“We must acknowledge great women like Asma Jahangir. She was a great trouble-maker, judges were terrified of her — and I say that in appreciation,” Justice Isa said at the event jointly organized by SOAS Pakistan Society and Bloomsbury Pakistan, a research center in London. 

“A bright future can only be secured when systems of oppression are dismantled. When gender violence, misogyny, and abuse are punished in accordance with the law. Asma Jahangir set an example when she demonstrated that tyranny is not insurmountable,” Justice Isa, who himself had recently been at the target of the country’s powerful military-intelligence establishment, said.  

“The judiciary, like our electoral system, is a vehicle to secure the fundamental rights of all. The only future I would like to imagine is one in which persecution and autocracy end,” he said, drawing attention to Pakistan’s abysmal record on gender equality.

When asked if he has faith in Pakistan’s democracy, Justice Isa said, “That is an extremely loaded question with a lot of assumptions. Do you have a better option? Did corruption go down under military dictatorships?

“It is not enough to merely make assumptions and denigrate the Constitution. The people of Pakistan have decided how to govern themselves, we must obey,” he said. 

In Pakistan, Justice Isa’s image is of those defiant judges who took on the country’s powerful military. 

In the last few years, the military and its intelligence agency ISI have significantly increased their influence on the country’s judiciary as witnessed in several controversial decisions in politically sensitive cases, including the one where the apex court ousted Nawaz Sharif as the country’s democratically elected prime minister.  

Very few judges have spoken, publicly, against the military’s growing interference in the judicial process. And, almost all of them, including Justice Isa, have faced pushback in some or another form from the powerful military

When asked if the judges are being subservient to dictators, Justice Isa said: “I myself have pointed out instances where the judiciary’s role leaves much to be desired. The judiciary is not a monolith of a building, individuals make the judiciary.

“Yes, there are judges who left a mark which makes me proud and those who have done otherwise, it’s been a mixed bag, I agree,” he was quoted as saying by Dawn. 

(SAM)