The legal tangle

The legal fraternity is in a discourse on the veracity and discretion of the Chief Justice to invoke suo motu powers. While the top court is sitting in judgment over the delay of polls by the Election Commission, despite the former’s express orders to hold it in the constitutionally mandated 90 days, what has made headlines is the note of dissent written by two honourable judges of the bench, who in their humble and legitimate domain have called for revisiting the power of the chief justice. In a detailed 28-page note, they went on to remark that the “one-man show” is uncalled for, and the top court could not “be dependent on the solitary decision of one man”. These are big words and demand some soul-searching and introspection from the architects of the Constitution, and that too without any prejudice to the top incumbent of the apex court.

There is a backgrounder to these observations, as puisne judges believe that the CJP’s initiative was ‘unjustified’ and in ‘undue haste’, and the top court’s ‘original jurisdiction’ under Article 184(3) of the Constitution is ‘discretionary, special and extraordinary’, which is to be exercised with circumspection only in exceptional cases of public importance. Thus, the note of dissent rests in its case. Such views are off and on aired by jurisprudents and are in need of being studied on the merits of Magna Carta. The point, nonetheless, is that the same article empowers the chief justice to exercise his discretion and invoke suo motu, as and when he feels it necessary as per law and dictates of compulsion in public interest with reference to the enforcement of any of the fundamental rights.

The fact that the note of dissent was compounded with the demand to set up a full court to hear the sub-judice litigation had stirred a debate. But that was put to rest by an honourable judge by saying “it is an internal matter of the Brother Judges.” Let this legal diatribe be one of brain-storming in judicial arenas, and the larger bench continue to focus over interpreting the Constitution on holding of polls in its lawful spirit.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 29^th, 2023.

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