Judge's removal

There should be no quarrel with the principle that a judge found to have entered the system on the basis of a fake or invalid degree must be shown the door. The judiciary, already struggling to retain public confidence, cannot afford even the whiff of academic fraud in its ranks. In that narrow sense, the removal of a judge over dubious credentials should be defended as a necessary, even cleansing, exercise. But principles do not operate in a vacuum. Timing and context matter.

The controversy surrounding Justice Jahangiri's law degree was an open secret. And yet, for more than three decades, it lay untouched. The judge was entrusted with sensitive cases and allowed to function without impediment. That this long-dormant issue suddenly acquired urgency only after a string of inconvenient judicial actions makes the present exercise appear less like routine accountability and more like a carefully timed intervention.

Justice Jahangiri was among the signatories to the Islamabad High Court judges' letter that spoke of interference and surveillance by state agencies. He also presided over politically charged matters, including election disputes, that went against the helmsmen and benefitted their opponent, the incarcerated former PM, Imran Khan. It is, it appears, against this backdrop that the University of Karachi's Syndicate suddenly annulled the degree, followed in quick succession by proceedings. The optics, to put it mildly, are poor. Accountability that is activated only when a judge asserts autonomy is a contradiction in terms.

There is also a larger, more uncomfortable question. If one judge managed to slip through the system, is it reasonable to assume he is the lone aberration? The likelihood is otherwise. Then there is the legal minefield. If a superior court judge is ultimately declared unqualified, what becomes of the judgments he authored? Are they to be treated as settled law, or reopened at will? The silence on this is alarming, and the judiciary does not need symbolic purges.