PM’s political and legal teams are tasked to suggest preliminary advice by Monday PHOTO: REUTERS
On Friday, the PM chaired the PML-N’s consultative meeting along with his top legal aides over the judiciary’s response on the formation of a judicial commission at the PM House.
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The PM is scheduled to start a one-day visit of Turkey on Saturday for attending marriage ceremony of Turkish President Erdogan’s daughter. He is scheduled to return on Sunday when he will again hold more consultative meetings, running well into the next week.
However, the PM’s political and legal teams were tasked to suggest preliminary advice by Monday.
Legal aides of the PM include Law Minister Zahid Hamid, PM’s Special Assistant on Law Barrister Zafarullah Khan and Attorney-General Aushtar Ausaf. According to the sources, the following decisions were made at the meeting:
All participants agreed that despite media’s portrayal of the judiciary’s response as rejection, the federal government will take the letter as a positive sign.
The government will never ever raise any objection on the CJP’s letter.
On the matter of whether to reply or take the judiciary’s letter as a guideline for reforming the ToRs, the sources said that PM’s legal team maintained that they would thoroughly study the letter and submit their input by Monday.
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The sources said that the government may opt to hold talks with all stakeholders instead of writing any letter in response, insisting that the judiciary was empowered to change everything under Article 184 and able to take up the issue. They said that the government might also ask opposition parties and the judiciary to devise ToRs.
A majority of participants were of the view that commissions on the 1971 tragedy, Abbottabad incident and even the recent flood commission had worked under the Inquiry Commission Act of 1956. They said hammering out a new legislation “will take a long time”.
Sources said that the CJP letter contained one point that favoured the federal government: it exonerated the PM and merely asked which names the government wanted to submit before the commission.
They said that it was now up to the government which names it wanted to move before the commission because the Panama Papers did not mention the PM by name.
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Barrister Zafarullah Khan said they would submit their legal input to the PM, adding that the legal team was carefully studying the letter.
The sources said that the PM had tasked his political team to approach all political parties.
Sources said that Finance Minister Ishaq Dar would soon approach Khursheed Shah to strike a consensus on the issue.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 14th, 2016.
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