Justice Minallah equates ‘hybrid system’ to dictatorship, urges return to constitutional rule

ISLAMABAD: Supreme Court Justice Athar Minallah described the popular characterisation of Pakistan’s governance as a “hybrid system” as nothing less than an acknowledgment of dictatorship, stressing that such an arrangement leaves no space for constitutional rule.

Addressing lawyers at the Karachi Bar Association, the senior judge said the term, once coined by analysts but more recently embraced by Defence Minister Khawaja Asif, reflected the deep entrenchment of informal power-sharing between the civilian government and the military. “To admit that a hybrid system exists is to admit that dictatorship exists, that constitutional governance does not,” he remarked.

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Justice Minallah criticised what he called the country’s persistent “elite capture” of institutions, arguing that Pakistan’s failure to establish rule of law had enabled cycles of interference and political manipulation. “In several judgments I have had to write that there is no rule of law or Constitution here,” he said, adding that the judiciary’s history was “not a source of pride.”

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Reflecting on his generation, he said it must own its mistakes. “We caused damage, and we cannot shift the blame to others. Our duty was to protect the Constitution and uphold the oath we took, without fear or favour. If judges remain silent in the face of constitutional violations, they are breaking their oath,” he warned.

He underlined that truth-telling was essential for societal survival, lamenting that distorted histories had long been taught. The 1971 break-up, he argued, could be traced to the dissolution of the constituent assembly by the civil-military bureaucracy. While independent judges had always existed, he said, the judiciary as an institution “never played the role it ought to have.”

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Calling the Constitution the embodiment of the people’s will, Justice Minallah stressed that elected representatives must not be engineered or manipulated, and elections must be free and transparent. He urged the youth to take up the challenge of change, saying only their “idealism” could reset the country’s course.

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Later in the day, Defence Minister Asif responded by pointing to Justice Minallah’s own past role as a provincial minister during Pervez Musharraf’s military regime, urging him to reflect on his record.