Saeed-uz-Zaman Siddiqui

Saeed-uz-Zaman Siddiqui, who passed away on Wednesday from an illness he suffered soon after being appointed as Sindh governor in November, lived a long and storied life that encompassed many crucial moments in the country’s history. He was born in Lucknow in 1938 and his family moved to Dhaka during Partition, giving him a historic link to East Pakistan. He then studied at Karachi University and practised as a lawyer at both the Sindh High Court and Supreme Court. He soon became one of the most prominent lawyers in the country and was regularly elected to leadership positions at the bar. As a judge of the Sindh High Court in the 1980s, during the repressive Zia years, he managed to keep his reputation for honesty and was made chief justice of the SHC in 1990. A position in the Supreme Court beckoned and he once again demonstrated his integrity when, as chief justice at the time of the Musharraf coup, he refused to take an oath under the Provincial Constitutional Order, saying that doing so would mean violating his sacred duty to defend the Constitution. Doing so cost Siddiqui both his position as chief justice and his freedom as Musharraf had him placed under house arrest.

Siddiqui’s principled defiance of the military dictator earned him stature and respect that crossed partisan lines. He was one of the few to publicly oppose Musharraf from the start and even stood against him as president in 2003. In 2008, both the PML-N and the Jamaat-e-Islami chose him as their candidate for president. In 2013, the PML-N again initially wanted to select Siddiqui and the PTI’s presidential candidate Wajihuddin Ahmed said he would step down should Siddiqui be chosen. In the end, the PML-N decided to go with Mamnoon Hussain although the consensus pick would have been Siddiqui. The PTI had often approached Siddiqui to join the party but he always preferred to remain independent and above the fray. His appointment last year as Sindh governor was a popular choice since both the MQM and PPP respected him but his illness prevented him from initiating a dialogue between the various political parties and the establishment. His death has robbed the country of a man who lived by a code of ethics and always tried to do the right thing no matter what it cost him personally.