Descent into medievalism.

IF the sentence of capital punishment in Tuesday's short order came as a jolt, the detailed verdict that held former army chief Gen Pervez Musharraf guilty of treason was nothing short of a judicial bombshell.

The tone of the verdict that was released yesterday was horrifying in places - and indicated a troubling descent into medievalism. Have we really become so brutalised as a society that we can order the corpse of a convict who dies before he is executed to be dragged to a public square and strung up for three days?

Two of the three judges on the special court bench had found Mr Musharraf guilty and sentenced him to death - a punishment that this paper deplores under any circumstances. And it was one of them, Justice Waqar Seth, who spelt out the graphic punishment.

It is to be hoped that this minority view does not obscure the underlying significance of the judgement - ie it is for the first time in this country that a former army chief has been found guilty of high treason. Critically, the 2-1 verdict had raised some other serious constitutional questions, including on the role of those who had aided Mr Musharraf in his Nov 3, 2007, misadventure. One hopes that the tone of the judgement will not obscure these relevant aspects.

Taking their cue from a meeting between the prime minister and the incumbent army chief, both the ISPR and the government's ministers have weighed in on the matter. The government has decided to approach the Supreme Judicial Council for the removal of Justice Seth on the grounds that he is 'unfit' to...