ISLAMABAD: The Sup­reme Court on Saturday ruled that live broadcast or live-str­e­aming was the court’s own exclusive domain, but exercised with caution to avoid apprehension of exploitation and misuse of facility for ulterior or personal purposes.

“There is also the possibility of grandstanding while the nation watches,” said a six-page order issued to explain why it declined Khyber Pakhtun­khwa’s application seeking live-streaming of Thursday’s hearing on the federal government’s intra-court appeals (ICA) in which former prime minister Imran Khan was also a respondent.

Through ICA the federal government had challenged the Sept 15 majority judgement that ruled amendments to the National Accountability Ordinance (NAO) illegal.

“This court must be vigilant against misuse or exploitation,” the order explained issued by a five-judge Sup­reme Court bench headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Qazi Faez Isa. However, Justice Athar Minallah dissented. During the hearing, Imran Khan was connected through video link from Adiala Jail, Rawalpindi.

Order says court must be ‘vigilant against exploitation’

When the head of a political party wants to be heard, who is not an advocate of the Supreme Court, there is a real probability that these hearings may be used for political purposes and point scoring and in respect of matters which do not concern these appeals, the order explained.

This was a paramount consideration when the court dismissed KP’s application, the order explained, adding the court’s apprehension proved correct later in the day, when Imran Khan addressed the Supreme Court on May 30, 2024, to mention other cases, the general elections held on Feb 8, 2024, a commission of inquiry and his incarceration.

All these matters have nothing to do with the subject matter of these appeals, the order explained, adding this cannot be permitted as it would thwart the proper administration of justice. Commenting on matters not under consideration may affect public perception. The rights of those who are not before us, including their fundamental right to fair trial and due process may also be affected, the order said.

Referring to the KP government’s application, the Supreme Court explained that the only reason in support of the application was that the ‘non-live showing of only this case amongst others was discrimination’.

“This reason is factually incorrect because only a very few cases have been live-streamed,” the order said, adding there were also instances where cases were initially live-streamed, but later discontinued in the interest of justice.

The application also does not cite any law in its support, the order said, adding the KP Advocate General must surely know that Article 25 of the Constitution stipulates that all citizens are equal before the law and are entitled to equal protection. But the application does not say how the KP government is being denied equality or equal protection of the law, the order said.

Therefore on this ground alone, KP’s application could be dismissed, but the court did not do so and decided it on merit.

The order recalled how a full-court meeting of Sept 18, 2023, decided, by a majority, that a pilot project be started with telecasting cases fixed before the full court bench regarding the Supreme Court (Practice and Procedure) Act, 2023, and it must be telecast live, to assess shortcomings and to formulate modalities in an effective manner.

A committee comprising Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar and Justice Athar Minallah was constituted to consider future telecast/streaming and work out modalities regarding telecast/streaming of other court cases in the shortest possible time.’

The committee’s report of Oct 16, 2023, attended to the technical aspects of the matter and concluded by stating that “we can also frame Rules or SOPs to be followed” regarding live-streaming, but this has not yet been done.

For the first time in its history, on Sept 18, 2023, the proceedings of the Supreme Court were broadcast live and then live-streamed.

Thereafter, from time to time, matters which were considered to be of public interest were live-streamed, the order said, recalling that 40 hearings have so far been live-streamed.

This initiative was taken to provide the general public and lawyers throughout Pakistan direct access to the courtroom in respect of matters of public interest.

The objective was manifold, including educational, openness and transparency, forestalling misreporting or one-sided reporting, facilitating lawyers on how best to articulate their propositions, how to effectively conduct cases and how to behave in the courtroom.

The Supreme Court explained that Imran Khan had filed the constitutional petition directly in the Supreme Court, under Article 184(3) of the Constitution and engaged the services of Muhammad Amir Malik as his advocate-on-record and a large number of lawyers represented him in the petition, challenging the amendments in the NAB law. Senior Advocate Khawaja Haris Ahmad was his lead counsel. Neither the KP government nor any other party requested to live broadcast/stream the hearings.

The KP government was not arrayed by Imran Khan as a party in the petition in the first round of litigation, nor did it seek to be arrayed as a party. And it did not participate in a single hearing.

Since it was not a party in the KP was not arrayed as a party in these appeals. The public has shown little or no interest in the matter of whether the amendments made to the National Accountability Ordin­ance 1999 are sustainable on the constitutional plane. Nonetheless this court, on its own volition was live-streaming the hearing of these appeals.

Published in Dawn, June 2nd, 2024