THE ongoing debate on the proposed formation of a constitutional court has raised the temperature on both sides of the aisle basically because of mistrust, misgivings and misunderstandings. The politicians, instead of indulging in confrontational politics, should for once sit down and sort out matters in parliament. Frankly, the necessity of establishing such a court would not have arisen had the politicians followed the rules of business strictly and did some serious legislation.

People have often wondered why the politicians need to file petitions with the courts to solve political matters. Over the years, politicians have become more and more dependent on the judiciary for so-rting out political grievances.

As far as the setting up of a constitutional court is concerned, there is nothing wrong or odd about the proposal. Quite a few advanced Western countries have constitutional courts. Surely, they must be having some strong reason or justification for the existence of such exclusive and specialised courts in their countries.

The issue should not be whether such a court should exist or not; rather, the core concern should be about the persons running the court, as well as the modus operandi adopted for the appointment of the judges.

The apprehension is that the appoint-ments to the court would lack transpa-rency and merit. The concern could be overcome by having a public debate in the media and in parliament where the profile of the proposed judges can be debated upon, and confirmations of appointments may only be subject to rectification by the upper house.

Just for the sake of context, courts in Pakistan remain rather overburdened, and presently about two million cases are pending, including about 50,000 at the Supreme Court, till December 2023, as mentioned in the Bi-Annual Report of Judicial Statistics issued by the Law and Justice Commission of Pakistan.

Khaled
Islamabad

Published in Dawn, October 11th, 2024