Barrister Usman Ali, Ph.D.
Politics in Pakistan has long operated with a troubling casualness toward legal rules. Compliance with law is frequently treated not as a duty but as a matter of convenience. When political actors align themselves with powerful military generals or influential institutions, procedural violations are overlooked, deadlines relaxed, and informal favours substituted for statutory discipline. Yet, when disputes are adjudicated by courts rather than resolved through back-channel understandings, the same actors often deflect blame, accusing judges of partisanship instead of acknowledging their own failures. The PTI intra-party elections and election symbol case decided in 2024 exemplifies this pattern.
At its core, the case did not concern ideology, popularity, or abstract notions of electoral fairness. It revolved around a narrow but fundamental legal issue: whether Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf complied with the mandatory requirements of the Elections Act, 2017 governing intra-party democracy. Sections 208 and 209 of the Act obligate political parties to conduct regular, transparent, and democratic internal elections and to submit valid certification of those elections to the Election Commission of Pakistan. These provisions are not mere technicalities; they reflect a constitutional commitment to democratic norms within political parties themselves, as envisaged under Article 17 of the Constitution, which permits political association subject to reasonable regulation by law.
The record demonstrated persistent non-compliance by PTI. Despite repeated reminders, notices, and opportunities afforded by the Election Commission, the party failed to conduct intra-party elections in accordance with both the statute and its own constitution. The process was marred by irregular timelines, inadequate notice to party members, lack of transparency, and procedural shortcuts that undermined credibility. The Commission did not act abruptly or arbitrarily; it exercised restraint and provided multiple opportunities to cure defects. Only after sustained non-compliance did it conclude that PTI had failed to satisfy the statutory conditions necessary to retain its election symbol.
When the dispute reached the Supreme Court, PTI’s legal strategy exposed a deeper institutional malaise. Rather than meaningfully contesting the factual findings or demonstrating substantial compliance with the law, the party effectively sought judicial indulgence. It appeared to expect the Court to rescue it from the consequences of its own neglect by invoking doctrines of necessity, expediency, or political proportionality divorced from statutory text. This expectation reflected a judicial past in which political realities were often accommodated at the expense of legal consistency, with constitutional deviations retrospectively legitimized rather than restrained.
Chief Justice Qazi Faez Isa’s judgment marked a decisive break from that legacy. The Court held that an election symbol is not a fundamental right but a statutory privilege, expressly conditioned upon compliance with law. Political popularity, public sympathy, or fear of electoral disadvantage cannot override clear legislative commands. The judiciary, the Court emphasized, is not empowered to suspend statutory requirements merely because their enforcement produces inconvenient or unpopular outcomes.
Criticism of the judgment largely centred on the Court’s refusal to invoke the so-called “law of necessity.” This critique is legally untenable. Historically, the doctrine has been associated with validating extra-constitutional actions, most notably military takeovers, beginning with Maulvi Tamizuddin Khan and entrenched through subsequent judicial endorsements of unconstitutional interventions. To demand its application in a routine statutory compliance matter is not merely unsound but normatively dangerous, as it suggests that political actors are entitled to exemptions from law whenever compliance becomes politically costly.
Justice Qazi Faez Isa was accused of partisanship, yet such allegations collapse under serious scrutiny. The judgment did not single out PTI based on leadership or political orientation. It applied neutral legal standards derived directly from statute. The Court neither expanded the powers of the Election Commission nor introduced novel principles of law; it reaffirmed that statutory conditions must be met before legal benefits can be claimed. Equal application of law often appears discriminatory only to those accustomed to preferential treatment.
The judgment also exemplified judicial restraint rather than activism. The Court resisted the temptation to balance legal obligations against political consequences or to craft ad hoc remedies for a powerful litigant. Instead, it respected the institutional competence of the Election Commission and reinforced the separation between legal adjudication and political management. In a polarized political environment, such restraint enhances rather than diminishes judicial credibility.
The implications of the case extend beyond PTI. It challenges a deeply entrenched culture of political exceptionalism in which parties assume that electoral strength, street power, or institutional sympathy can substitute for legal compliance. The judgment reaffirmed a basic democratic truth: a political party unable to conduct transparent internal elections cannot credibly claim to champion democracy at the national level. Internal accountability is not optional; it is foundational.
PTI’s response, mobilizing public outrage against judges rather than confronting its own governance failures, further underscores the problem. In a constitutional democracy, criticism of judicial reasoning is legitimate. However, personal attacks on judges for refusing to abandon the law corrode institutional trust and weaken democratic norms. Judicial independence cannot survive in a political culture that treats adverse verdicts as conspiracies rather than consequences of legal failure.
The allegations and character assassination directed at Justice Qazi Faez Isa in the aftermath of this decision amount, in substance, to an admission of the absence of any credible legal argument. Judicial history is not shaped by slogans, social-media campaigns, or political agitation; it is written through constitutional fidelity, statutory obedience, and reasoned analysis. In the years ahead, lawyers and scholars will return not to the noise surrounding this case but to its legal reasoning and principled conclusions. For political parties, the message is unambiguous: compliance with law is not optional, nor can it be waived through pressure or populism. It is precisely this refusal to accommodate illegality, even when politically inconvenient, that elevates the judgment from momentary controversy to enduring precedent.
