Today, I begin my fortnightly column for @thenews_intl. Honoured and grateful to be alternating Justice Babar Sattar’s old column space with @salmanAraja sb. For my first piece, I write about false accusations of blasphemy and the Aurat March. https://t.co/RI3LRRzpPT

So many tut-tutting that even one death is inexcusable, while also working overtime to claim a death toll as low as possible. They openly issued orders to shoot-on-sight, and did. Your desire to win this inane argument is only aiding the cover-up. Focus on what matters.

They can charge Matiullah Jan with whatever they like, but he recorded his crimes himself: As the state shot at its own people under the cover of night, Mati peeled back the darkness to expose its crimes.

They know no language other than violence, and they speak it only to their own people. The capital may have been cleared out, but a siege on the country continues. And conscripted clowns triumphantly rattle their own chains to celebrate.

A stolen election, a hollowed judiciary, sham trials, abductions and now a willingness to point the gun at their own people. But slack-jawed hybrid puppets-speaking through illegal VPNs-care only that those with the courage to resist didn't knock before walking through the door.

For all the importance we may give ourselves as an audience, we weren't even really meant to be watching. It was only when dawn revealed the foul fumes of failure that We The People had to be ‘consulted’ on a draft that we hadn’t fully seen @Brainmasalaar https://t.co/znRre9McyU

Fitting that this piece makes print as it becomes clear that this amendment is to pass at all costs -even if it means abducting parliamentarians’ wives. I argue here that, even as a passive audience, the least we deserve is a half-believable script: https://t.co/39OGEDcP8t

From the Charter of Democracy, to Jinnah, and now Dorab Patel, we’re one step away from a sermon on Muhammad Bin Qasim’s vision for a federal constitutional court. Perhaps you could also cite sources that insisted that the promised court be created before 25th October, 2024?

Yes. Enforced disappearances, internment centres, civilian trials in military courts: all bad. But what does have to do with supporting the FCC? Respectfully, if you have to use your position on other things as a crutch, then that’s a sign that it’s probably just a bad idea.

so I wrote a novel, comes out next year

How was a bench created by a committee of just two? Why the need for an ad-hoc judge? Why the exclusion of Justice Akhtar without a recusal? Why couldn’t it wait? Why the sudden interest in counting votes on constitutional amendments,with so many older matters pending? And so on.

The Supreme Court’s original decision on Article 63A was not convincing. But, as the SC sets it aside, the criticism will have less to do with the judgment itself than it will with the lengths to which the CJ seems to have gone to facilitate the constitutional amendment:

Where does this idea of a Constitutional Court come from? Is it even a workable idea in our legal system? Or will actually make all our judicial problems, from delays to excessive politicisation, even worse? I discuss all this in an article for The News.

This paragraph is no less significant. It is a good reminder that, in upholding the Practice and Procedure Act, the SC didn’t hand over to Parliament an unrestricted right to interfere in its working. Limiting one man’s discretion was, and remains, a good thing.

The Supreme Court is being destroyed and replaced by a brand-new, even-more-supreme court, just one that’s junior to the PM. Piece today, on the 'amendment' that marks the final wrecking ball to judicial independence.

In removing J. Munib Akhtar from the Committee, the CJP has struck two of his own ‘principles’ with one stroke. He’s validated needless legislation through ordinances while forgetting all he wrote about curtailing the powers of the CJ. Hard to even feign disappointment anymore.

The Chief prevailed. Parallel systems continue to clash. The govt clings on to power for a bit longer. One day, they will be on the other side of all this. But that doesn’t matter for now. Hey, at least the 26th amendment created a right to a healthy environment. 😇

But the FCC transfers the cases to itself, because it now can. The President, and a newly reconstructed Judicial Commission decide it’s time to put these High Court judges in their place. So they transfer them out. Because they can now. So it goes.

All the while, other fun stuff has been happening too. People believe they can still trust the High Courts, and those judges who were not handpicked to sit at the FCC. So petitions are filed there too.

The FCC doesn’t care: it is now the highest court. It is now hearing the matter of banning the PTI. The SC would have done this, but the Constitution has been amended. The FCC, and its handpicked judges, ban the PTI. Bye bye PTI.

Parallel proceedings begin. The FCC tells the SC to listen to it -because it is now supposed to - and stop hearing the case. The SC tells the FCC to climb a tree and strikes down the 26th amendment. The FCC strikes down the striking down. And so on.