Maryam Nawaz aims guns at superior judiciary again

Cautions CJ against following Imran Khan’s lead

LAHORE:

Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Senior Vice President Maryam Nawaz has cautioned Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Umar Ata Bandial against following Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan’s lead, claiming that the PTI chief humiliates his “facilitators” after using them.

“I want to give a message to Imran Khan’s facilitators: this is the judiciary of Pakistan, not your joyland where you issue orders to please your families,” she said while addressing a workers’ convention in Kasur on Wednesday.

Maryam, who has been indirectly accusing the chief justice for the past several weeks of forming benches comprising partisan judges in political cases and also other judges of “questionable integrity”, upped the ante, by naming and cautioning the top judge against aiding Imran.

The PML-N leader claimed that the day the SC announced a verdict against PML-N supreme leader Nawaz Sharif in the Panama Papers case, the families of then-chief justice Saqib Nisar and senior judge Asif Saeed Khosa sat in the gallery to celebrate the decision.

She alleged that the CJP took suo motu notice on orders of the former prime minister, who, she claimed, is a “mad man”.

Maryam said Imran has not only “drowned” himself but also his benefactors. She said the former premier’s government was declared by the Supreme Court to have violated the Constitution, but despite that Imran was allowed to get off scot-free.

The PML-N leader asked CJP Bandial why Imran was not punished in that case.

She said people are forced to say that courts issue orders not in the light of the law and the Constitution but to facilitate Imran Khan; “decisions are taken to please wives, kids and sons-in-law”.

Maryam said the CJP said that the government has money for laptop schemes but does not have Rs20 billion for elections in Punjab.

She said that they have Rs20 billion for elections in Pakistan one time, not thrice. She reiterated that there was no guarantee that the PTI would accept the outcome of these elections, and upon losing it might accuse the PML-N-led federal government of meddling in the process.

She  said this was no child’s play.

“The CJ said that people are standing in lines for flour. We say that there are even longer queues outside courts of people awaiting justice,” she added.

Maryam said they are democratic people and want elections but before elections the question of how Hamza Sharif’s government was overthrown by “gifting” 25 votes to the PTI must be answered.

She said that the question of who changed the decision from four to three majority to two to three minority decision in the provincial election case should be resolved.

“Is this not fraud with the people of Pakistan?” she asked.

“The question as to why an elected PM was ousted for possessing a work permit from another country, and for not disclosing a salary he did not receive from his son in his taxes and the question as to why the verdict against Nawaz Sharif still stands despite the testimonies of his innocence are not answered.”

Maryam declared SC judge Mazahar Ali Akbar Naqvi, “a facilitator of Imran Khan, whose corruption case is awaiting trial at the Supreme Judicial Council” and similarly, former justice Shaukat Saddiqui’s case is also awaiting trial at the SJC.

She said that nothing could scare her from telling the truth.

She said Imran talks about rule of law but when he was summoned to courts, he first presented his leg injury, then his age, and then security reasons as pretext to evade court hearings.

“Finally, when police were sent to his residence to ensure his presence in a court of law, the PTI workers attacked police, throwing petrol bombs and marbles at them. Imran Khan even called GB (Gilgit Baltistan) Police to his rescue,” she remarked.

She called the former premier a “hypocrite” who is putting the lives of his workers at risk, all the while keeping his own safety as his top priority.

“Imran first accused the establishment of trying to kill him; then he accused [interior minister] Rana Sanaullah; then the Punjab Police; then the Islamabad Police chief and finally Punjab Caretaker Chief Minister Mohsin Naqvi.”