Govt warns SC against overstepping mandate
As executive-judiciary tensions climbed to a new peak, the government on Friday denied overnight media reports of having ‘secretive’ plans of purging a ‘hostile’ Supreme Court but in the same breath appeared to be warning judges against overstepping their constitutional mandate.
Addressing the media in Islamabad, Law Minister Babar Awan sent a veiled yet an apparent message to the judiciary to ‘calm down’, saying “institutions which fall under the services of Pakistan must not take part in politics”.
“The institutions wherein politics is not allowed should not speak…and if somebody has a misunderstanding that they are more popular than us, we want to say it cannot happen,” Awan said.
When asked which institutions he believed were into politics despite a constitutional bar, Awan declined mentioning any person or organisation, simply saying, “You know it better than I do.” However, he later hit out at the SC, saying, “It is necessary for the stability of the country that the judiciary should speak through its verdict and not through news tickers (electronic media).”
The law minister’s ‘warning’ to an increasingly assertive judiciary came a day after a ‘sudden’ reaction by the SC to media reports that the government wanted to withdraw a notification it issued early last year to restore the judges former President Pervez Musharraf had sacked in 2007.
Awan said there wasn’t any such plan but refused to comment when asked whether the judiciary should have reacted in such a way. “I don’t want to comment on this,” was his reply. He appeared to agree with a ruling by the SC earlier in the day that the government could not withdraw the executive order of judges’ restoration because it was given a legal cover in July 31, 2009.
“Since then it has become a judicial decision which doesn’t need any validation,” he remarked.
Awan added that Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani will address the nation on Sunday to clarify the government’s stance on what happened late Thursday night.Separately, officials in ruling Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) said that President Asif Ali Zardari and Gilani held an emergency meeting earlier in the day to discuss the situation emanating out of the SC’s reaction to media reports.
“The premier will detail all these things in his address to the nation,” they added.
Awan also mentioned what is often referred to as a ‘partial’ role of the SC by saying that it should hear a petition of former air chief Asghar Khan that is related to rigging in 1990 general elections. “We back calls for an early hearing of Asghar Khan’s petition,” the minister said.
When asked why Gilani had not come up with a written denial of the media reports in the apex court on Friday, he said the premier had denied the ‘baseless’ news last night and that ‘should have been respected’. The minister said every step of the government regarding its handling of the judiciary and its verdict will be based on what is provided in the constitution.
Awan also mentioned all the incidents from the past two-decades in the history of Pakistan wherein the judiciary supported dictators including Musharraf’s three-year time after 1999 coup.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 16th, 2010.
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why no article6 on musharaf who was dictator?sc threatend democratic govt today of articale6 on simple notification issue but never took notice when altaf hussain called army to take over.was it not case of article6.