IMPORTANT as it is for a court to establish all the relevant facts, the request by the Supreme Court for the government to produce the decades-old notification under which the ISI political cell was set up is perhaps not the best direction in which the Mehrangate hearings ought to be heading. The notification, if indeed one can or will be produced by the government, is largely beside the point. What is important is that the ISI’s political cell has changed the course of electoral history — from the anti-PPP IJI to the ‘King’s’ party, i.e. the PML-Q, under Musharraf — and done so to the detriment of constitutional and democratic order. In fact, while the last ISI chief, Gen Pasha (retd), claimed several years ago that the political cell had been shut down there has been no independent verification of that assertion. In any case, at least the perception of the ISI continuing to meddle in the political and electoral process continues to this day with allegations from across the political spectrum, whether it is the claim that the Difa-i-Pakistan Council was cobbled together with the encouragement of the security establishment or the claim by the PML-N that the rise of Imran Khan’s PTI is an ‘agency-backed’ phenomenon.

That, then, is the central challenge before the SC: helping to ensure that the self-appointed guardians of the political ideology of Pakistan do not continue to try and remake the country in their own image. And even if the ISI’s political role is already in decline, the SC can boost public trust in elections and the political process by publicly establishing that electoral results are not the outcome of behind-the-scenes machinations by powerful unelected forces. There’s little doubt that the army’s interference in the political process has been facilitated by most politicians, including the most high-profile ones. But to support a genuine and transparent democratic political process is the responsibility of all institutions, no matter how flawed the politicians may be. The SC has an opportunity to make a lasting contribution to the strengthening of the democratic process. Grabbing that opportunity would require keeping focused on the real threat.