Legal group faults CJP Iftikhar as inconsistent
06 December, 2013
ISLAMABAD: Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry has strengthened human rights but his inconsistent choice of cases has left the Supreme Court (SC) vulnerable to accusations of partisan intervention, a global group of 60 eminent judges and lawyers said on Thursday.
Justice Chaudhry – due to step down on December 12 – spearheaded a legal movement that forced out a dictator and established the independence of judiciary in the country.
But without further reforms, Pakistan's justice system will continue to destabilise the nuclear-armed nation, the Geneva-based International Commission of Jurists warned in a report.
"The Court has often garnered public acclaim for demanding government accountability," the body said. But many felt "concerns that the Court has sometimes exercised its original jurisdiction in a political and partisan manner". Justice Chaudhry helped restore some hope in the courts, the report said, by intervening in individual cases, such as one where police did not intervene in a lynching and another where paramilitary forces were filmed executing a civilian.
"Officials who were responsible for the killing and who would have otherwise escaped accountability were investigated and brought to justice," the commission said.
Such interventions have led to an explosion in the number of human rights cases submitted to the court. In 2011, it received more than 150,000 petitions, compared to just 450 in 2004.
Sometimes important cases were ignored and some seemingly frivolous ones taken up, the commission said. "In some cases, the Supreme Court has acted swiftly... facilitating victims' right to remedy and reparation. In other instances, however, the Court has not responded to urgent human rights issues," it said.
Justice Chaudhry protected the rights of transsexuals but ignored attacks on religious minorities, the report said.
He intervened in government decisions but was unable to punish a single member of the powerful security agencies for the disappearance, torture or killing of thousands of Pakistanis.
Although the court intervened in some murder cases, many were kicked down to the lower courts or opened, then simply shelved. Even cases in the Supreme Court were often dealt with arbitrarily.
When five girls were allegedly killed for clapping to music in Kohistan, the court accepted a sloppy investigation that ignored forensic evidence, despite repeated public appeals by one of the investigators.
"I hoped that things had changed and now the court would give justice," said Afzal Kohistani, who petitioned for the Supreme Court to intervene in the Kohistan case. "Now I have no hope because we have been forgotten."
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