Gobsmacked!

Unbelievable. Un-effing-believable!

I really have no polite words for this. I saw this flash on DawnNews and thought I must have been dreaming. Or that the channel must have got something wrong. But no such luck.

Here is the short report in Dawn of today's proceedings in the Supreme Court of Pakistan, still hearing a case against the 18th Amendment as the rest of the country copes with death, destruction and disease. Read it and weep. The operative part of that report is this:

"During the hearing, the federation lawyer said that the parliament's powers were limitless. Responding to that, Chief Justice Iftikhar said that limitless powers could secularise the country."

Yes I know all about the mis-translation into Urdu of 'secularism' as 'la-deeniat' decades ago and the confusion it has caused in ordinary people's minds ever since. But when the chief justice of the highest court is able to say things like this, probably with all the pseudo-gravitas he can muster, you have to wonder about the intellectual bankruptcy of this nation's powers-that-be.

Free Iftikhar Chaudhry!

And Aitzaz Ahsan believes this man is the saviour of Pakistan?