Justices Mansoor Ali Shah and Athar Minallah had resigned from the Supreme Court on November 13, hours after the contentious 27th Constitutional Amendment was signed into law by President Asif Ali Zardari. Shah had assailed the amendment as “a grave assault on the Constitution of Pakistan” while Minallah said he had sworn to uphold not “a constitution” but “the Constitution”.
Meanwhile, Lahore High Court’s Justice Shams Mehmood Mirza had tendered his resignation two days later, saying: “After the 27th Amendment in the Constitution, I am not inclined as a matter of principle and in good conscience to continue as a judge.”
In a statement printed in Dawn on Saturday, 60 citizens and lawyers issued a statement saying: “We mourn presently, not at the resignations of Justices Shah, Minallah and Mirza — they have permanently etched their names on the short list of national heroes who prized principles over expediency — but at the demise of the Supreme Court of Pakistan and the high courts of Pakistan, and the entinguishment of the last embers of an independent judiciary.”
The statement included the names of lawyers Abid S. Zuberi, Jibran Nasir, Imaan Mazari, Asad Rahim, Sardar Latif Khosa, Salman Akram Raja, Zainab Janjua, Faisal Siddiqui and Salahuddin Ahmed.
Tehreek-i-Tahafuz-i-Ayeen-i-Pakistan leader Mustafa Nawaz Khokhar was also included in the list.
The statement said that Mansoor “undisputedly ranks among the finest jurists ever produced by Pakistan”.
“He stood entirely peerless in his zeal for judicial reform and his vision to drag the creaking edifice of the Pakistan judiciary into the 21st century and transform it into an instrument for speedy justice for the common litigant,” it said.
“It is our judiciary’s and our nation’s misfortune that we have chosen to sacrifice him at the altar of short-term political expediency and the desire for personal advancement of others,” the statement said.
It went on to say that Minallah had been a consistent voice for the weak and disempowered, for the families of missing persons, for journalists muzzled by the state, for the opposition “tormented by the government of the day and for judges hounded by intelligence agencies”.
“He was one of the few judges possessed with sufficient self-awareness to be able to cast a critical eye on the judicial history of Pakistan,” it said.
“To be lauded by those on the receiving end of power and criticised by those wielding it, is a distinction for the conscientious constitutional judge,” the statement said.
It also noted his contribution to transforming the Islamabad High Court as a “citadel of judicial independence”.
Talking about Mirza, the statement said that he left behind an enduring example of a judge who “refused to let fundamental rights become casualties of turbulent times and became an anchor of constitutional steadiness”.
“In his decisiveness and integrity, he neither courted controversy nor shied away from difficult decisions,” it said.
“By choosing judicial defiance over judicial silence, he ensured that when history is written, his name will stand firmly on the side of constitutional courage as the only high court judge who resigned in protest against the pseudo 27th Constitutional Amendment,” it said.
The statement said that it was ironic that the judges were castigated by the “wielders of power, not for their own sin but for earlier sins of those whom they resisted”.
“Their fault lay in the steadfastness of their ‘no’ when others were willing to say ‘yes’,” it said.
“Their decision to preserve their constitutional oath and honour over office and privilege: to speak out instead of silently acquiescing to regression masquerading as reform; to stand instead of kneeling — is a spark to the conscience of a nation,” the statement said.