Vindictive legislation

The government seems to be in an unchartered territory and is messing up with issues. Of late, its plan to touch-base unnecessarily on stipulated legislations - such as increasing the number of Supreme Court judges in haste and adding new muscles of coercion to the district administration(s) - are ill-conceived. It clearly smells a rat and is aimed at fixing the opposition, which is already pushed to the wall. The expressive intent of the ruling dispensation is to somehow 'influence' the superior judiciary and especially the judges who are speaking their independent piece of mind while interpreting the Constitution. Apparently, it also wants to checkmate the implementation of July 12 majority judgment of 8-5 in favour of granting reserved seats to the PTI, by putting it up for a review in an expanded full court. Thus, increasing the strength of the apex court from 17 to 21 has a narrative dovetailed in it.

While the PTI has opposed both the legislative pieces, one cannot be sure of their staying put in form. The opposition legislatures are a disaster in holding their ground on the floor of the house, and have hardly made their presence felt. With a simple majority at its disposal, the beleaguered coalition can make its way and set in more bottlenecks at the cost of social unrest. Empowering the local magistrates to crack down on gatherings, especially in the federal capital, will come with severe backlash as the twin cities are at a standstill on a daily basis and civic commutation remains an enigma. Moreover, the government's obsession to deny the agitators their political and constitutional space to vent their grievances has added to instability, and led to a law and order situation.

The bicameral has been a failure in addressing real public woes such as inflation, energy bills and economic decimation. For the last eight months, only intricate issues that had a role to play in bullying the opposition and seeking a hide and seek with rules of business were in vogue. Time to focus on existential issues and not those with a vindictive approach.