Judges of the Federal Constitutional Court have questioned the Supreme Court’s 18 August order transferring Imran Khan to Shifa International Hospital (Express Tribune).
What was asked
Justice Ali Baqar Najafi observed that jail regulations require inmates to be treated at government hospitals, and asked why there should be exceptions.
Justice Aamer Farooq asked why the Supreme Court had bypassed established prison protocols by ordering private hospital care.
The bench also included Chief Justice Amin-ud-Din Khan.
The jurisdictional move
The FCC invoked Article 175E, which allows it to take over a case pending elsewhere where substantial questions of constitutional interpretation arise. A law officer said the FCC “could summon a case pending before the Supreme Court”.
Under post-27th Amendment arrangements, FCC decisions bind all courts — including the Supreme Court.
Why this is bigger than one prisoner’s hospital
Because of what it establishes about the hierarchy. A constitutional court asserting the power to call up and review a matter pending before the Supreme Court, and binding it, is a restructuring of Pakistan’s judicial order being worked out in a live case about a former prime minister’s medical treatment.
Whatever one thinks of the 18 August order, the question of who may review it is not a small procedural point. It is the 27th Amendment being given practical content.
The other proceedings running at the same time
A Supreme Court bench headed by Justice Shahid Waheed is hearing the matter, with a contempt petition against the prime minister listed for 16 September over non-implementation of the same 18 August order.
This newspaper reported on 9 September that three Adiala prisoners had gone to the FCC seeking private hospital treatment under Article 25, arguing they were entitled to the same facility granted to Khan by that order.
If the FCC now doubts the order’s basis, those Article 25 appeals lose the thing they were built on.
What is not established
The FCC has issued no ruling — these are observations from the bench. It has not been reported whether it will formally assume jurisdiction, nor whether the 18 August order was ever implemented.
[Image: The Express Tribune]
