Khosa says judges quote literature to decorate their verdicts.

Byline: Peerzada Salman

KARACHI -- The second edition of the Adab Festival Pakistan kicked off at the Arts Council of Pakistan, Karachi, on Friday evening with speeches that provided food for thought for the book lovers that had showed up for the three-day event.

There were three keynote addresses on the inaugural day, first of which was delivered by former chief justice of Pakistan Asif Saeed Khosa. Before his address, he showed a nice gesture by remembering Justice Fakhruddin G. Ebrahim who passed away on Jan 7.

'He was an icon in more ways than one. He served his country as an accomplished lawyer; judge of a high court, judge of the Supreme Court; attorney general; minister for law; governor; and chief of the Election Commission of Pakistan. In each of such sensitive positions, he served with independence, ability, grace and dignity, and earned nothing but respect and reverence. The vacuum created by his passing away shall be hard to fill, and he shall be remembered for a long time,' he said.

Mr Khosa then talked at length about the relationship between law and literature because of the word adab in the name of the festival. He spoke briefly in Urdu in which he told the audience that he studied English Literature and then law, using the word adab in different ways.

Second Adab Festival begins at Arts Council

He argued that it's difficult to define literature but generally it's understood to be a piece of writing having an artistic or intellectual value or merit. 'Literature is that communication which deploys words or language in a manner which pleases the ear, heart or mind or tickles the finer sensibilities in a person and assumes the status of art. It is sometimes for art's sake but on other occasions it's employed as a tool or technique while speaking or writing about a mundane or a professional subject.' (The latter aspect was the focus of his speech.)

Mr Khosa said judges in some parts of the world quoted literature to embellish or decorate their judgements; referred to literary masterpieces to emphasise a point or even created literature through the use of prose of artistic merit or expressions of high literary merit while composing their judgements.

In that regard, he gave many examples from judgements from different parts of the globe in which works of prose and poetry were used. The last example that he gave was of the times when 'literature comes in handy' when judges can't say things themselves.

He said a few weeks before his...