WE know what he did: dragged his institution out from underneath the heel of the boot and the civilian. We know what he didn’t do: fix much of anything.

So now we’re left with the legacy question: what did it all add up to?

For a bottom-line kinda guy, CJ Iftikhar will know the uncomfortable truth: he was a lame duck for much of his final stretch in office.

Say what? Hasn’t he been busy as a bee, suspending people, dispensing Chaudhrian justice, harassing the government and the mighty night and day?

Well, sure, but who cares?

Unless you were the sucker caught in the line of fire, the Court of Chaudhry came down to this: it was a force for disruption, but not the force for radical change that it wanted to be.

The moment of truth came with the sacking of YRG. Remember him? Pakistan’s longest-serving prime minister? Yeah, we’ve all moved on.

Sacking Gilani was the absolute most a judiciary could do. That and sanctifying a coup, which wasn’t on the cards anyway and would have been slightly awkward for you-know-who.

So here at long last, with the sacking of Gilani, was the judiciary of the judiciary’s dreams: dominant, powerful, able to bend the mighty to its will, ruling the rulers, as it were.

And it led to nothing.

Yeah, there was a media frenzy. Yeah, your average person had an opinion about it. But the system kinda shrugged and moved on.

The nuclear button had been pressed. Nothing exploded.

Sure, the real power politically was with Zardari. Sure, the sacking was timed to divert attention from familial scandal. But sacking a prime minister was still a really, really big deal. Or was supposed to be.

Instead, the politicians shrugged and elected a new prime minister and then both sides of the aisle congratulated him and accepted his legitimacy.

And just like that, it was over. The secret was out, the ones who mattered knew: Chaudhry had done his worst and no one really cared.

From there, it was an inevitable countdown, to this week, to Dec 12.

Even the theory of an extension didn’t gain much traction. For while nobody doubted that an extension was desired, just like it surely was by Kayani, there was an obvious problem: wanting something isn’t the same thing as being able to get that something.

Bye-bye, Kayani. Bye-bye, CJ. Hello, system.

So now what? Now nothing. Or not much anyway.

Step One has been figured out. Pakistan’s problem for the longest time was that everyone wanted to do someone else’s job. The army wanted to run the country. The politicians wanted to be bureaucrats and policemen. The judiciary wanted to lecture others about their jobs instead of focusing on their own.

Now we kinda have a fledgling consensus: Smithian specialisation/Montesquieuian separation of powers is the way to go.

Politicians decide, army defends and judges adjudicate. We may not have the details quite worked out yet, but more folk will agree more vehemently than ever that it’s the only way to go.

And here’s what makes it seemingly durable: the creeping consensus has emerged from a history of failure.

Let’s go back to Chaudhry to explain.

Broadly speaking, there are four categories of interventions he specialised in: political, governance, economic and military. A sweeping approach befitting a man with a sweeping agenda. But public opinion received each intervention differently.

The political interventions have been panned: don’t sack prime ministers or presidents, let the people decide, the people have spoken. From a systemic perspective, that’s an excellent thing.

The governance interventions have gone down reasonably well: go after the corrupt, punish violators of the public trust, make the rulers follow the rules, the people have agreed. From a systemic perspective, that’s a reasonably OK thing.

The economic interventions have been received rapturously: stop inflation, save jobs, give more to the poor, the people have screamed. From a systemic perspective, that’s a bad thing — but then, do rulers or the ruled have a grasp of the basics of how and when the state and the economy should intersect to the benefit of both? That’ll take a while yet.

The military interventions have been acclaimed: no more coups, find our missing people, the public has agreed. From a systemic perspective, that’s a critical evolutionary step.

It matters not anymore what motivated CJ Iftikhar to attempt all that he attempted. Now that he’s gone — or with a final few hours left for a last hurrah anyway — what matters is how all that he attempted was received by the country at large.

And in the overall response to each of the four broad categories in which the CJ dabbled, there is a discernible, historical shift; a shift in the national approach to matters of politics and governance and how the state ought to run and by whom and to what end.

Essentially, do your job and let others get on with their jobs, and if it’s your job to give others a kick up the backside for not doing their jobs, then give them that kick but don’t send them toppling over — a workable enough approach to propping up a rickety system, which is the first step to getting a system to deliver.

So yeah, he was a lame duck for much of the final stretch. Yeah, he seemed to want to paint on a bigger canvas than what was supposed to be his.

But CJ Iftikhar’s failure was the system’s success: he grabbed back the space that rightfully belonged to the judiciary, but was rebuffed when he tried to grab much, much more.

Bye-bye, CJ. Hello, system.

Now, Step Two: figuring out how to get the damn system to deliver.

The writer is a member of staff.

cyril.a@gmail.com

Twitter: @cyalm