PM says he never threatened judiciary

Gilani calls SC’s decision to favour a ‘rumour’ over his denial an insult, demands respect for his office.

ISLAMABAD: As a tenuous environment continues to grip the country’s political horizon, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani has called for ‘mutual respect’ among state institutions in what appeared to be an angry reaction to a Supreme Court order for probing a ‘rumoured’ media report despite a denial by him.

In a long and uncharacteristically harsh-worded address to the nation on Sunday evening, an otherwise composed Gilani said it was an ‘insult to’ his office that the Supreme Court last week favoured unconfirmed news over a denial by him as well as President Asif Ali Zardari.

Almost all judges of the growingly assertive Supreme Court assembled in the middle of the night on Thursday when private television channels reported that the government might attempt to withdraw an executive order through which they were reinstated back in 2009.

The judges of the superior judiciary including Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry were sent packing by former president Pervez Musharraf in his November 2007 emergency declaration.

“If false news spread by one source is preferred over the statement of the prime minister, then it will be an insult of his office,” Gilani said.

“I immediately issued a denial when this news came to the light. The president also declared it wrong. But it was not accepted despite all that. Let me remind that we would be ignoring the principles  of mutual respect that is the soul of the Pakistan’s constitution, which is parliamentary,” the premier added.

The Supreme Court has set the next hearing into the case on Monday (today) and has asked the government to come up with a written explanation from the highest ‘constitutional office’. While denying it again, Gilani hardly dropped a hint that he would be sending an explanation in writing to the court.

Those who appeared on television with the premier included the chief ministers of Khyber-Pukhtunkhwa, Balochistan and Gilgit-Baltistan, Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) prime minister and senior ministers from Punjab and Sindh cabinets.

However, Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif whose Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) is apparently seeking a new political alignment with his past foes, was missing, undermining Gilani’s attempt to send across a message of complete unity among the politicians. “Whether the prime minister says something verbally or in writing, it is respected. If he denies a report, it is the demand of his position that his words are accepted at all forums,” Gilani remarked in an obvious reference to Supreme Court’s orders last week.

Gilani recalled when he had decided to reinstate the judges through the executive order and was told he could not do that “I was told ‘This is the violation of the constitution’ and that ‘Article 6 can be imposed on it’ – I never pay any heed to these voices. I did not care for any danger and announced the reinstatement,”

Olive Branch

It was not all rebuke that the premier came up with for the SC. He also offered the judiciary a reconciliation to ensure ‘justice for downtrodden masses’.

“If the judiciary and the government work hand in hand, we can provide justice to poor people of this country. We can make a framework for this,” he suggested. “Today the judiciary and the government will have to work together for the legal, social and economic justice … I am ready to sit with the respected judges. I am willing to form a forum for that,” he added.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 18th, 2010.