LAST week, the newly established Federal Constitutional Court (FCC) gave two noteworthy judgements. Both concerned legal issues of a political nature the kind that perhaps would have taken up considerable time and energy in the Supreme Court of the olden days, along with detailed coverage by the media. But those were different times; at present, the cases progressed quietly and the decisions came without much bang or thunder.
In one case, the court settled an election dispute that has been going on for the past two years. Back in 2024, the JUI-F had disputed the notification of a woman to one of its reserved seats. It claimed that the woman who had been notified simply shared the first name Sadaf with the woman mentioned on the party’s list.
The woman on the JUI-F list, Sadaf Yasmin, had decided against submitting her papers due to personal reasons; however, a woman called Sadaf Ihsan (with whom the party says it has no connection) submitted her papers and got nominated by the ECP for the seat. The JUI-F claims Ihsan impersonated Sadaf Yasmin despite having a different name and was somehow identified as the latter.
When this was pointed out to the Election Commission of Pakistan, not only did it withdraw the announcement, but also suspended the official who issued the notification. This was reported in Dawn. But the matter didn’t end there. Sadaf Ihsan approached the Peshawar High Court (PHC) and was reinstated. The party then challenged the decision in the Supreme Court, winning reprieve for itself. Ihsan was suspended. But the relief was simply an interim order, and once the FCC was established, the file was transferred to it.
The FCC sent the case back to the ECP, which in January this year reinstated Sadaf Ihsan in the seat. This past week, the JUI-F’s appeal against this decision was dismissed by the FCC. Ihsan is now a JUI-F MNA, while theparty continues to insist that she is not a member and was never on the list submitted to the ECP. Ihsan, according to a report on the Fafen website, claims she and her family are associated with the party.
It now appears the decision is final and no appellate forums remain. Another interesting aspect of this case is that this seat was given to the JUI-F after the decision that deprived the PTI of reserved seats.
In a second case, the FCC has apparently stopped the PHC from hearing cases regarding the custody or arrest of PTI workers. With the imposition of the emergency in KP and a crackdown against the party in the province, multiple cases concerning the whereabouts or bail of PTI members ended up in the PHC, which then passed an interim order preventing such detentions.
As in many cases, bail had also been granted; the provincial government challenged them in the FCC. According to one report in Dawn, more than 60 cases in which bail had been given were challenged by the KP government in the FCC.
After hearing the cases, the FCC stopped the high court from hearing these matters; its argument was that since the army has been called in, in aid of civil power, the court could no longer hear matters under Article 199, which, in layperson’s terms, is equivalent to what we once saw as the suo motu powers of the Supreme Court.
According to one lawyer’s comment, which he posted on social media, this order means the high court can no longer entertain any writ petitions, which, according to him, is a power the courts continued to enjoy even under martial law regimes. In other words, the order limits the PHC in matters far wider than simply the arrests of and bail for PTI workers. It means the high court cannot hear any matters related to fundamental rights.
While these two cases date back to just the past week, a third judgement is a little older. It had already been discussed in quite a bit ofdetail in Dawn and elsewhere. But it is still worth mentioning. In a recent case, the FCC seems to have provided a restricted interpretation of workplace harassment. Ignoring past precedents, which had interpreted workplace harassment more liberally, the court has now ruled that harassment is to be limited to actions of an overtly sexual nature; previously, judgements had interpreted the law to include what is defined as gender-based discrimination. A piece by Barrister Rida Hosain pointed out that in a previous decision, Justice Ayesha Malik had said that ‘reducing harassment to conduct that is sexual in nature ‘takes away the essence’ of the harassment law, and ignores that harassment is often less about sexual interest and more about reinforcing existing power dynamics’. Hosain quoted Justice Ayesha Malik as saying that the very ‘purpose of harassment laws is to address gender-based discrimination at the workplace and not to limit it to sexual forms of harassment’. But the FCC has now seen it differently.
And while the decision drew criticism, it is fortunate that amendments to the law itself have provided a more wide-ranging definition.
However, the ruling of the FCC does mean that complainants in incidents or cases that predate the amendment may have to prove harassment according to the FCC’s interpretation. Women lawyers in particular have discussed this issue in detail in articles and commentary that have appeared in Dawn.
Three cases, three judgements. But they reveal quite a lot of what the FCC appears to stand for to those of us who have little understanding of the legalese but who do keep an eye on the politics of the country be it fundamental rights, women’s rights, or perhaps those of political parties. One can only wonder if any of the parliamentarians who voted for these courts have paid any attention to these judgements. The writer is a joumalist.