THE chief justice of Pakistan, Saqib Nisar, peers through a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles at the ingredients list on a packet of powdered milk, shakes his head in sadness and then shoos 20 lawyers for the industry away from the bench. He has a busy schedule. Consumed in recent months by a mission to deliver “clean air, clean water and pure milk” to Pakistan, the 64-year-old is spending a Saturday hearing 16 cases that he has taken up suo motu, or on his own initiative. Crowds throng the courthouse in Lahore, the capital of the state of Punjab, drawn by the spectacle of a judge dispensing verdicts like a king. The powder, he rules, must be relabelled post-haste. After milk, he turns to the owners of a factory allegedly dumping effluent into a river. An elderly villager in a white turban breaks forward, begging the justice to punish them. “I cannot let my children be poisoned,” thunders Mr Nisar (pictured).
Mr Nisar is not Pakistan’s first celebrity judge. In...Continue reading
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