“The law hath not been dead, though it hath slept.” — William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure
There are moments in the constitutional life of nations when Shakespeare’s warning begins to acquire contemporary meaning. Moments when the majesty of law retreats into silence. The fall of the Western Roman Empire taught us one thing: institutions do not collapse dramatically; they decay quietly. Their buildings remain standing. Their ceremonies continue uninterrupted. Judges may still wear robes. Courtrooms may still function. Cause lists may still circulate. Yet somewhere beneath the pompous architecture of constitutionalism, the soul of justice quietly departs. Pakistan appears to have entered such an unfortunate moment.
The question confronting Pakistan today is no longer whether constitutional law exists textually. Indisputably, the Constitution still survives in books, speeches, judicial oaths and ceremonies. The real question is whether the law is merely sleeping, as Shakespeare warned, or whether the prolonged silence of institutions has begun resembling something far more permanent.
There was a time when judicial relief in Pakistan carried genuine constitutional meaning. A litigant approached the courts, exercising his fundamental constitutional right of access to justice guaranteed under Article 9 of the Constitution, believing adjudication would eventually arrive. Relief meant acquittal. Relief meant bail. Relief meant suspension of sentence. Relief meant the restoration of rights unlawfully taken away by the state. Relief meant restraining the executive from excess or abuse of power. Courts were understood as the ultimate legal restraint upon the arbitrary, capricious and unstructured exercise of discretion by the executive.
Nevertheless, in contemporary Pakistan, particularly within politically sensitive litigation or cases affecting the interests of the deep state, the meaning of judicial relief has undergone an outrageous transformation. Future constitutional pundits may one day study this transformation as a separate pathology of institutional decline. Relief no longer means success in litigation. It no longer even means obtaining a favourable judicial order. Increasingly, relief means something modest: that the case has finally been fixed for a hearing. And even such a small mercy often arrives only after prolonged and unremitting struggle. This is perhaps the most revealing tragedy of the present judicial moment: citizens of Pakistan now celebrate the mere possibility of being heard.
Article 10A of the Constitution of Pakistan guarantees the right to a fair trial. A fair trial does not mean merely filing a petition and waiting endlessly within procedural corridors. Article 10A contemplates something far more substantive: a meaningful hearing, conducted fairly, followed by adjudication in accordance with the law.
Redressal of grievance in the form of judicial pronouncement is now celebrated as relief. But post-26th and 27th Amendments, Pakistan has reduced even the first threshold of Article 10A into a constitutional battle. The point from which a fair trial begins, namely the hearing itself, has become inaccessible. Cases remain unfixed for weeks and months. Hearings disappear unexpectedly. Technical objections emerge endlessly. And when eventually a politically sensitive case is finally listed before a bench, citizens celebrate the fixation itself as if justice has already been delivered.
Judicial independence reveals itself when courts hear politically consequential matters promptly, fearlessly and fairly, even when powerful quarters grow uncomfortable
One now witnesses scenes that would once have appeared absurd within any functioning judicial order: political workers and lawyers gathering outside the Islamabad High Court, celebrating not an acquittal, not bail, not a judgment, but merely the fact that Imran Khan’s case has finally been fixed for hearing. That image alone captures the tragedy of Pakistan’s judicial decline more powerfully than any constitutional commentary ever could.
Not long ago, Pakistan’s judiciary, despite inconsistency, historical compromises and periodic surrender before power, still retained a semblance of independence. There existed judges who restrained arbitrary authority, challenged executive overreach and reminded governments that constitutions were not ornamental documents drafted merely for ceremonies. The judiciary remained imperfect, yet sufficiently autonomous for citizens to believe that even powerful actors could be compelled to answer before the law. That fragile equilibrium has deteriorated rapidly.
Over the last several years, and particularly after the passage of the 26th and 27th Constitutional Amendments, a growing perception has emerged across the country that the judiciary has ceased functioning as an independent constitutional organ and has increasingly become an extension of the executive structure itself. The consequences of these amendments cannot be measured merely through constitutional text. Their true effects are visible in hesitant judicial behaviour, selective urgency, procedural paralysis and the increasing unwillingness of courts to hear politically sensitive matters with constitutional immediacy.
The Al-Qadir University case appeal became symbolic not merely because of the individual involved, but because of what the process itself revealed. Hearings appeared only to disappear again. The case was fixed after an extraordinary delay. Procedural complications emerged unexpectedly. Adjournments multiplied endlessly. Weeks passed. Months passed. Imran Khan remained imprisoned while the process continued, wandering through procedural corridors without a destination. The cases of Imam Mazari and Hadi Chatha reflected the same judicial pathology. There too, litigation became trapped by procedural paralysis until even fixation for a hearing began to resemble a constitutional victory rather than an ordinary judicial function.
Gradually, one realises something deeply disturbing: there exists a premeditated design behind all this misery. The goal behind the emergence of this judicial pathology is to ensure continued incarceration. Incarceration no longer depends solely upon conviction. It increasingly depends upon preventing adjudication itself. This is authoritarianism refined through procedure. Unlike older forms of state repression, modern constitutional control does not always require visible suspension of rights. Rights may continue to exist formally. Petitions may continue being filed. Courts may continue functioning ceremonially. Liberty need not be denied openly if it can simply be postponed indefinitely through technical delay.
The brilliance of such a system lies precisely in its appearance of legality. Every adjournment appears individually reasonable. Every postponement arrives wrapped in procedural language. Every delay possesses a technical justification. Yet collectively, these delays produce something profoundly unconstitutional: punishment through the process itself.
The accused is no longer punished merely through a verdict. He is punished through uncertainty, exhaustion and endless procedural suffocation. The process itself becomes the sentence. The litigant waits. The lawyer waits. The family waits. And somewhere between registry objections, unavailable benches, procedural formalities and adjournments without consequence, time itself becomes punishment.
Perhaps the most alarming feature of this crisis is that litigants increasingly require public pressure merely to secure judicial movement. Lawyers organise protests. Political workers gather outside courtrooms. Delegations meet the chief justices requesting the fixation of cases. Demonstrations are organised not to influence judicial outcomes, but simply to ensure hearings occur at all.
In functioning constitutional systems, courts reduce political tension because citizens trust the judicial process. In Pakistan, however, political pressure has become necessary merely to activate the judicial process itself. Street marches, protests and agitation now pressurise the courtrooms to function. When citizens begin celebrating not acquittal, not bail, not restoration of rights, but merely the fact that a case has finally been fixed for hearing, one realises a disease has entered the bloodstream of the judicial organ itself.
Thus, what confronts Pakistan today is not merely a question of judicial independence, but judicial pathology. A judiciary does not prove its independence by deciding routine commercial disputes or ordinary civil litigation. Judicial independence reveals itself when courts hear politically consequential matters promptly, fearlessly and fairly, even when powerful quarters grow uncomfortable. This is the true constitutional test.