EDITORIAL: No doubt the Supreme Court tried to end the controversy surrounding the Mubarak Sani case, expunging contentious paragraphs from its own orders and ruling out their use as judicial precedents, but the way it deviated from the gist of the case and delved in religious texts and scriptures seems to have set an example of its own.
Indeed, of the scholars that advised the court at the end, perhaps Maulana Taqi Usmani – joining via video link from Turkiye – said it best that the court should have restricted itself to the matter of bail “rather than going into detail and quoting different verses from the Holy Quran”.
Surely, the highest court in the land is no stranger to the controversy that can be easily stoked when it must decide about grey areas in the constitution overlapping with deep religious sensitivities.
The least it could and should have done, as the proceedings of this case went on to prove, was consult religious scholars of weight before reaching some of its conclusions. Then there would be no question of veering off course in what was a simple matter of bail at the end of the day.
Yet those who were issued notices drowned the court in so many documents that CJP Isa said reviewing them in detail would have led to an “entire book” made out the decision. “I could not review all those documents, which is my mistake,” he admitted.
It seems the matter ended with all parties agreeing on another kind of precedent; that religious scholars should be consulted in such cases. That would lead one to believe that the court will work out a mechanism mandating such procedures in future. There’s enough trouble as it is without court rulings triggering protests by religious groups in the heart of the capital – some even breaching the sanctity of the top court itself.
Besides, interpreting religious doctrines on the basis of expertise in interpreting the constitution is a very tricky exercise, because while there is no doubt that the latter is built on the former, it is important to have thorough academic understanding and command on the language and context of the Quranic text to be able to quote from it. And that further bolsters the argument in favour of exhaustive consultation prior to reaching decisions/verdicts in similar cases.
It’s also a shame that such matters are promptly politicised. Once again the apex court found itself in the eye of the storm, its reputation dragged all over unforgiving social media platforms, forcing it to issue an official statement. Hopefully, this matter is now well and truly in the past, and valuable lessons that have come out of it will be applied in letter and spirit in the future.
CJP Isa must be commended for his astute judgment and timely realisation that earlier orders had gone off course, and for striking them off the record.
Religious scholars, too, provided the kind of clarity that the court clearly needed to move forward in this case. Yet for all this good they must also use their good offices to keep protestors coming out of seminaries in check when they attempt to take the law into their own hands.
That there was unease about the court’s earlier observations and decision was apparent, but was storming the apex court the right way of expressing that discontent?
Perhaps this case provides an opportunity for everybody – not just the courts but also people affected by their decisions – to turn the leaf and move forward.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2024
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