Pakistan’s Supreme Court has granted bail to PTI chief Imran Khan in eight cases related to May 9 events. The court accepted his appeals against the Lahore High Court and called the two parties into the chamber at 1pm for a written order. In its ruling, the Supreme Court declared the Lahore High Court‘s ruling was null and void.
Change in Court Bench
Before this, there had been a replacement in the bench that was to hear Imran Khan‘s bail cases. Ahead of the hearing today, Chief Justice Yahya Afridi was the presiding officer of the three member bench with Justice Hasan Azhar Rizvi replacing Justice Mian Gul Hassan Aurangzeb. Today Chief Justice Yahya Afridi‘s bench continued to hear the case, with the Prosecution represented by prosecutor Zulfiqar Naqvi. The case was kept over from yesterday because the prosecution had some health issues, but the Court continued today.
Court Questions
The Chief Justice asked two crucial questions at the outset:
Can a court give a final determination in a bail matter? Previously, in cases of conspiracy, bail was granted to other accused persons. Should the same logic prevail here?
The prosecutor responded that bail cases involve observations that are interim, do not affect the trial, and defended the courts repeated findings, spanning 1996 to 2024, ratione temporis, by referring to a number of past Supreme Court decisions and asserting that courts have stated that “remarks made in bail hearings are by their nature interim propositions”.
Previous Cases Debate
The Chief Justice reminded the prosecutor that in one of the May 9 cases, despite being charged with conspiracy, bail was granted, and he asked the prosecutor to discuss why this precedent should not be followed.
The prosecutor explained that in those cases the accused were not directly named in the FIRs so they were distinguishable. He also mentioned judgments from 2014, 1996, 1998, and 2022, which stated that bail orders did not impact the main trial.
The Chief Justice nevertheless pointed out that while there were three separate decisions, accused persons were accused of conspiracy and still granted bail.
