With the passing away on 15 March of former Supreme Court judge Dorab Patel, Pakistan lost one of its most prominent and dedicated human rights activists. A slightly built figure, always conservatively dressed in suit and tie, he was an unlikely national hero with his Anglicised background and conservative, elitist upbringing as the son of a wealthy Zoroastrian businessman. The story of Justice Patel´s life as a human rights crusader, starting from the time he chose to retire on principle during the rule of military dictator Gen Ziaul Haq, is one through which Pakistan´s chequered history since that period could be told.
On 24 March 1981, he refused to take a fresh oath under the Provisional Constitutional Order (PCO), promulgated by Gen Zia, which not only negated the independence of the judiciary but also prolonged martial law by nullifying the effect of a judgement giving Gen Zia´s regime limited recognition. As a signatory to the judgement, Dorab Patel could not have taken the new oath, given his strict conscience.
A lesser man might have succumbed. The temptation certainly would have been great: due to seniority he was all set to take over as Chief Justice of Pakistan as soon as the incumbent retired the following year, and would have headed the apex court for seven years.
Justice Patel did not think twice about rebuffing Gen Zia, relates a fellow judge, Fakhruddin G. Ebrahim. As was the custom, the Chief Justice put the question first to the junior-most, at that time, Justice Ebrahim. "Not without apprehension I said, ´Sir, I am going home.´ The same question was put to my colleagues in the reverse order of seniority, and most of them were willing to take the oath," he recalls. "I walked up to Dorab Patel, who was seated close to me, and asked him in Gujrati, ´What is your decision?´ Promptly and without the least hesitation, he said, ´How can I take such
an oath!´."