Fundamental rights in Gilgit-Baltistan lower priority compared to resolution of Kashmir dispute, suggests Pakistan SC judgment

For those unaware of the black hole that is Gilgit-Baltistan, it is not constitutionally part of Pakistan, and was hived away from the original state of Jammu and Kashmir in 1949. This does nothing less than recite a highly selected history of the Kashmir conflict, pauses to praise the moral stance of the Pakistan government, dodges key legal issues in the creation of Gilgit-Baltistan, and finally decides against granting more freedoms to a people who are probably the only people in the world who don’t officially exist. The Karachi Agreement — who’s text is unavailable anywhere on the net or on the official website of the Pakistani government — created a small sliver of a territory called Azad Kashmir, and left territory nearly 6 times its size in an administrative limbo, with even the most basic fundamental rights denied to its people. Finally, the court does a series of legal twists and turns, and after emphasising the need for fundamental right being ensured for the people of Gilgit-Baltistan, then proceeds to take away the powers of its courts to decide on anything to do with Pakistan, and then sets in stone an order of 2018 that had led to widespread protests with all political parties showing a rare unity in their opposition. The logic of the court is that granting of full rights to the people of Gilgit-Baltistan would have eroded Pakistan’s “principled stand” on the Kashmir issue as an unresolved dispute.