Muhammad Munir: From Jinnah to Zia

Muhammad Munir was the Chief Justice of Pakistan from 29 June 1954 – 2 May 1960. He did not believe in democracy and the rule of law. He believed that Pakistan was best run from the top down by the civil and military bureaucracy. He destroyed democracy in Pakistan by giving a series of poor judgments favouring the Government, the first of these being Maulvi Tamizuddin Khan PLD 1955 FC 240. Later in The State v Dosso PLD 1958 SC 533, Munir set out to develop the manacles of the doctrine of necessity even further by validating and upholding martial law. His book From Jinnah to Zia where he appeared to regret his judgments can be read here.

Panama Papers Judgment

Constitution Petition No. 29 of 2016 or the Panama Papers Scandal judgment was handed down today by the Supreme Court of Pakistan. The Panama Papers are a giant leak of more than 11.5 million financial and legal records exposing a system that enables crime, corruption and wrongdoing, hidden by secretive offshore companies.

The Supreme Court ruled there is insufficient evidence of corruption to remove Nawaz Sharif from the role of prime minister. But it ordered a further investigation into money transfers. Questions arose over the business dealings of Mr Sharif’s family when three of his children were linked to offshore accounts in the Panama Papers leaks in 2015. News reports are available on the ruling below:

• BBC: Panama Papers: Pakistan PM Nawaz Sharif survives corruption ruling
• Guardian: Panama Papers: court rejects call to oust Pakistani PM over corruption claims
• Dawn: Panamagate verdict: PML-N declares ‘victory’, Supreme Court orders JIT probe of Sharif family
• Dawn: 13 damning remarks made by Justice Khosa on Panamagate
• Dawn: Meet the SC judges behind the Panama Papers ruling

APS Attack: Off The Hook?

As reported in the media, the Supreme Court of Pakistan has stayed the execution of three APS attack facilitators. The report from Dawn can be extracted as: The Supreme Court on Tuesday stayed the execution of three men convicted by military courts for their involvement in the Army Public School attack. The three men — Mohammad Zubair, Ali Rehman and Taj Mohammad — were convicted of facilitating and abetting the deadly attack in Dec 2014 that killed over 140, mostly children. A two-member bench comprising Justice Dost Muhammad and Justice Qazi Faez Isa ordered a stay on the implementation of the military court decision. The families of the convicts had challenged the military court verdict through petitions filed in the Peshawar High Court (PHC), however, after PHC dismissed the appeals, they moved the Supreme Court through Advocate Latif Afridi. During the hearing, Afridi claimed that the high court did not even open the record and dismissed the appeals without hearing them. The court issued notices to the attorney general and jail branch, and directed the former to explain the dismissal of the appeals. The hearing was subsequently adjourned to Feb 16. On Dec 2 last year, four terrorists