By Syed Haider Raza Mehdi
Black robed, stern-faced, frowned and steely eyed, the lordships who “dispense” justice, with the scales of blind justice towering over their bench, but not their conscience, delivered a most devastating, perhaps even an existential blow to not just justice but to their own consciences and to the hopes of this nation, hoping against hope that maybe now the high and mighty would not escape their just desserts!
Stern men, having spent their lives studying law. Having spent decades sermonizing that justice must be seen to be delivered. Some quoting Khalil Gibran and extracts from the “Godfather”. Some launching their fire and brimstone tirades on a hapless soul who unknowingly stepped out of line in court, casually allowed a criminal to go free under a line of argument which brought tears to our eyes, shamed our hearts and destroyed our hopes.
Hopes that perhaps now this country could perhaps see the dawn of a time where no one, big or small, was above the law. Where poetry and literature quoting Lordships brought hope of a system in which justice was truly blind.
Where, whether you were a pauper, a prince or an ex PM, you would be dealt in the same manner as all others!
Where we desperately nurtured a hope, that perhaps, now, perhaps once in a blue moon, perhaps in a rare beam of sunlight stream, we have people with spines, with conscience, with strength of character, with moral courage, to stand up for justice and do the right thing!
But to expect roses from thorn beds, milk from gutter, justice from a place and a system where everything under the sun was fair game.
Where their highest had time for everything under the sun. From bottled water to hospitals to school fees and God knows what else.
To expect fair play, where except for high-sounding hyperbole delivered in self-righteous hypocritical sermonizing anger, there wasn’t even token, even hypocritical, even mildly pretentious effort to reform their own terribly dilapidated, terribly corrosive, terribly destructive institution, would be foolish and stupid.
How could we be so naive to expect justice from a system which is so evil, so terrible, so mafia like, causing untold misery, distress and devastation to tens of millions of this country’s citizenry in the name of law and justice?
How could we ever expect that the high and mighty of this land would suffer the same indignities as all others?
How could we have hoped that we have finally turned the corner?
We hang our heads in shame, in sorrow, in hopelessness, as we see the death of the collective conscience of what goes for Justice in Pakistan!