By Ahsan

So what do you know. Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry has been making menacing noises about the apex court’s ability to strike down any laws that parliament comes up with — you know, the body responsible for making laws and all. That one. Even Aitzaz Ahsan — Aitzaz Ahsan! — is thinking they’ve overstepped the mark here, though of course he expressed such feelings quite diplomatically. I want to make three quick points about this before I go to bed.

First, I don’t actually understand the object of the complaints here. Now, it should be noted that the Chief Justice didn’t say anything explicitly against the 18th amendment, it’s just that the timing of his remarks functions as a pretty good indicator of what he’s talking about, or so goes the conventional wisdom. Assuming the conventional wisdom is right — and I think it is in this case — it raises the obvious question of what the hell his problem is. The wrangling right at the tail-end of the negotiation process of the Rabbani committee ensured the court got the tie-breaking seventh vote on judicial appointments; essentially the judiciary now controls itself in a complete and unmitigated way. So what is the problem? Am I missing something painfully obvious here? What does the judiciary have against the 18th amendment, either legally or politically?

Second, note the language he used — “may strike down any law inconsistent with the injunctions of Islam as laid down in the Holy Quran and the Sunnah and the fundamental rights as enshrined in the constitution.” Did you happen to notice what comes first and what comes second in that sentence? Wasn’t the lawyer’s movement once proudly held up as an example of a secular, progressive movement by a civil society eager to project their views on to the Hero, Iftikhar Chaudhry?

Maybe I’m overreacting here. But it seems to me that while the lawyer’s movement and this judiciary have never been avowedly theocratic, they (a) use religious undertones very strategically and politically in their pronouncements, and (b) reflect a peculiarly eschatologicial view of political developments whereby the only thing standing between us poor sods and the end of time is this Hero, who will help deliver Justice and carry us safely to Paradise under his stewardship when the time is appropriate. I exaggerate, but only just. The point is that this judiciary has never been secular in any meaningful sense of the term, and nobody should pretend that it is. Now, maybe you think that’s not a big deal, but that’s a different question.

Third, as I’ve talked about in detail before, Iftikhar Chaudhry is prone to delusions of grandeur that basically all Pakistani public figures — generals, politicians, even journalists — suffer from. He really does believe in unrestricted power for the judiciary, not for its own sake per se, but because he truly believes that we, the people, need him to occupy that role. We wouldn’t survive otherwise. In that sense, he is Pakistanier than mangoes in the summer, weird art on buses, and paiya jaams.

Isn’t it interesting that the only figure in recent Pakistani history to willingly circumscribe their powers — rather than bargain for more as Iftikhar Chaudhry is doing here — is Asif Zardari? His detractors might point to the fact that he was pushed into doing so by the public and the political elite, both within his party and without. To that I would say: so? How many other people have been pushed to give up powers and still not done so? Is it unfair to say that Asif Zardari is unique in a very historical sense of doing what few others have done? And doesn’t he deserve large dollops of credit for this?

I know Pakistanis in general are loath to appreciate anything Zardari does, and that’s fine — free country and all. He is at root a very unlikable man, and I get that. But instead of deifying Iftikhar Chaudhry and his power-grabbing ways, which the public has done for three years now, we might actually doff our cap in the direction of a man who has taken some serious lashings in the court of public opinion, and yet boldly given up his powers willingly (even allowing for a loose definition of “willingly”). It’s something Iftikhar Chaudhry might do well to learn.