PLF convention: Lawyers announce backing for prime minister

‘Judges should cite law and Constitution in verdicts, not quote poetry’.

LAHORE:

The People’s Lawyers Forum (PLF) announced on Thursday that they would stage a rally on May 13 to express solidarity with President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani.

Speaking at a PLF convention at the Karachi Shuhada Hall of the Lahore High Court Bar Association, PLF Punjab President Sardar Khurram Latif Khosa said that the prime minister was functioning according to the Constitution and the Forum would continue to support him. He said the Supreme Court had not stated in its judgments that the prime minister had been disqualified, hence he remained the constitutionally elected head of the government.

He said that the use of poetry in the additional note to the detailed contempt of court verdict against the prime minister was “an attempt to malign the Constitution”. Judges were supposed to use quotes from the Constitution and the law, he said. He demanded daily hearings of the Zulfikar Ali Bhutto reference.

PLF Punjab Secretary General Iftikhar Shahid said that that prime minister still had a right to appeal the judgement so he could not be disqualified. He said that the Constitution was the supreme law of the land and everyone must follow it. He said that the judges who took oath under provisional constitutional orders twice should apologise to the nation. He said that those who bowed before a dictator must seek the people’s forgiveness.

PPP leader Chaudhry Ghulam Abbas said that the party had given the country the Constitution. He said that PCO judges were responsible for the problems of the country. Justice (retired) Syed Zahid Hussain Bukhari said that an incomplete Election Commission did not have the authority to issue the PM’s disqualification notification. He said that an acting election commissioner could not send a reference against the prime minister. He said that it was up to the National Assembly speaker to decide about the qualification or disqualification of an elected member.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 11^th, 2012.