In the high-stakes theatre of the courtroom, the judge sits as a secular deity. Clad in robes that symbolise the shedding of personal bias, they hold the power to strip a man of his liberty, a family of its home, a business of its profit, or even a nation of its constitutional integrity. Yet, beneath the solemnity of the gavel lies a vulnerability as old as literature itself: the temptation of the Faustian bargain.

In Christopher Marlowe’s 16th-century tragedy, Doctor Faustus, the protagonist, a man of immense learning, finds the limits of conventional knowledge stifling. He bargains his eternal soul to Mephistopheles in exchange for twenty-four years of absolute power and the service of dark forces. Today, we witness a modern iteration of this tragedy.

The "modern Faustus" in robes does not sign a contract in blood; instead, the pact is sealed through "telephone justice," the promise of multiple allowances, increased duration of the current offices, lucrative post-retirement perks, lucrative post-retirement new powerful positions, or the quiet accumulation of assets that far outstrip a public servant’s legitimate salary, bordering upon legal plunder.

The spiritual and moral gravity of this betrayal is nowhere more starkly defined than in the recent jurisprudence of the Hon’ble Supreme Court of Pakistan. In the landmark judgment of Federation of Pakistan v. The Hon’ble Supreme Judicial Council (PLD 2024 SC 698), the court invoked a terrifyingly precise Hadith of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him) from Sunan Abu-Dawud: The Office of the Judge (Kitab Al-Aqdiyah), Book 18, Number 3566:

"Judges are of three types, one of whom will go to Paradise and two to Hell. The one who will go to Paradise is a man who knows what is right and gives........

© The Friday Times