A full court meeting headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry has expressed resolve that come hell or high water the constitution will be protected and under no circumstances will the government be allowed to disobey the court’s orders. One wishes it Godspeed in its just cause to establish rule of law.No one in the country wants to see the judicial crisis get out of control but the situation, courtesy government’s brazen foot-dragging is only assuming horrific proportions by the hour.
At the same time, while hearing the Hajj scam case, the Supreme Court issued a 24-hour deadline to the Prime Minister to restore the Secretary Establishment Sohail Ahmed which has now expired. Acting with patience, the Supreme Court on Wednesday gave another 24 hours to government to reinstate Mr Ahmed.
In fact despite the Supreme Court orders, the defiance by the Prime Minister is very much disturbing. There is an impression that the PM is creating roadblocks in the way of the judiciary partly because of his son who happens to be one of the accused in the Hajj scam case. It is but incomprehensible why he stated on Wednesday that his authority was being encroached. The truth is, it is the executive that has been trying to clip the wings of the judiciary in all sorts of sordid ways. He went to the extent of saying that he was not a working professional but a politician. One wonders whether being a politician mean disobeying the rule of law with impunity.
On the other side of the spectrum, the loud mouthed PPP big shot Babar Awan, who parrots almost with finesse everything his big bosses utter, has stated that the institutions must work within their framework and that the Supreme Court should refrain from issuing summons of government officials. Mr Awan’s comments are outrageous and deserve to be condemned strongly as such remarks in fact amount to testing the patience of the court and provoking it merely for the sake of it. Democracy is prevailing and its spirit gives the Supreme Court complete liberty to summon government officials.
Mr Awan is making it sound as if dictatorship was prevailing.It bears pointing out that so far the government has defied the Supreme Court on at least 18 cases, ever since the historic NRO judgement was passed. This is a deliberate attempt to create political unrest in the country and directly challenging the writ of the apex court. And then we have Mr Babar Awan delivering a sermon that the institutions must work in their framework. If the orders are not obeyed, the Supreme Court as it stated on Wednesday would only be forced to assert itself to get its verdicts implemented. – Nation
