WILL the Supreme Court verdict on the NRO destabilise the current political dispensation? Has it revived the spirit of judicial activism displayed under Justice Sajjad Ali Shah in December 1997?

The pressure on President Asif Zardari has increased manifold. The fate of the president is being widely discussed in terms of his loss of moral standing, his vulnerability in the face of legal cases at home and abroad and the lowering of his credibility with national and international forces operating on the political stage of Pakistan.

The defence minister was stopped from leaving for China due to the presence of his name on what turned out to be the wrong Exit Control List. The interior minister has been summoned to court. Some are rushing for safety through the courts. There is frenzy all around.

The Supreme Court has become proactive. It not only declared the NRO unconstitutional and void, thereby reopening cases against a large number of people. It has also ordered the expeditious pursuit of cases, including those in foreign countries, and against Musharraf's attorney general, and directed prosecutors at all levels to help in this process.

The court has put in place monitoring cells in the higher courts to oversee the prosecution of NRO beneficiaries through regular reports from the NAB. This role for the courts is unparalleled in the history of Pakistan. The articulate sections of the public, which feel agitated over the issue of corruption, support the judiciary in its latest incarnation.

The media has generally pointed to the 'mood' of the apex court in terms of its professed commitment to root out corruption from society. Apart from the 'mood', which is hypothetical and mere conjecture, the judiciary's approach to corruption has definite implications as far as the thrust of its judgment and argumentation is concerned.

The Supreme Court's verdict on the NRO has shown a broadly individualistic approach to justice. The focus is on what is described as a discriminatory law in so far as some benefited from it while others did not. The purpose of the NRO in terms of expanding the net of political participation by bringing in dissident elements is thereby rendered infructuous and immoral. The verdict focuses on the means not the end.

The court implicitly adhered to the traditional route to addressing the issue of corruption by apprehending the big fish. Ayub fired dozens, Yahya 303, Bhutto 1,300. Loan defaulters were pursued with gusto by several governments. Each of them ended up creating new defaulters. The visibility factor has pushed the accountability agenda against leading politicians while corruption behind a million counters is typically ignored.

In the NRO case, the judiciary's approach has appeared non-reformist in the context of an exclusive focus on accountability, which is post-facto in nature. The idea is that punishment for corruption will serve as a deterrent. This is unlikely to happen. The nature of a judicial verdict is retrospective. It deals with the past. The nature of legislation is prospective. It aims at the future. The two roles are getting mixed up.

Courts generally deal with individuals as perpetrators and victims of crime. The larger systems are typically immune from the fallout of their verdicts. Only in constitutional cases, were courts able to make and break governments by extending or denying legitimacy to acts of dismissal of elected governments. Paradoxically, in the present case the system is likely to be destabilised because of the individually affected.

What happens to the system as a result of the judgment may go beyond the letter of the verdict itself. This can take several forms an angry reaction from Sindh, thereby increasing pressure on the federation; internal dissension within the PPP, thus weakening one of the two pillars of the political edifice, the other being the PML; and tipping the balance in favour of non-parliamentary forces, leading to the alienation of political forces.

If the ruling setup collapses as a consequence of the court's verdict in a few months, how is the PPP going to react? Obviously, it will cry foul and play the victim of persecution. It will claim that its downfall was not due to bad governance but because of the designs of the establishment.

The issue of immunity for the president is staring the government in the face. The Supreme Court has given no judgment on this issue. But soon, it will have to consider it if the litigant public decides to file cases to withdraw the cover of immunity from the president. Section 248 confirms immunity. The opposition focuses on Article 248-4 for challenging the eligibility of the president for office as well as Article 62.

Among others, MQM is the most visibly affected in terms of the number of cases revived against its workers running into thousands and the criminal nature of these cases. The party triggered the crisis by refusing to support the NRO bill in the National Assembly. That led to hearings on NRO in the first place. The political sagacity of Altaf Hussain's move at the cost of getting his cadres and workers embroiled in court hearings with dire implications is likely to become a source of controversy in the party ranks.

The absence of Nawaz Sharif from the political scene can be an expression of cluelessness. He would like the democratic framework of politics to continue. It would not make sense for him to seek office if civil-military relations worsen further. He would not like a proactive judiciary either. His policy of wait-and-see is geared towards keeping his profile as non-controversial as possible.

Are we entering a new era when the judiciary and the executive will represent two hostile camps? Is one side taking the high moral ground and focusing on accountability, the other drawing on popular vote as its source of legitimacy? The former is seeking an extension of its role. The latter finds this an encroachment on the domain of the executive. The drama of institutional imbalance is being re-enacted.