Memogate Case; Chief Justice dispels fears of a military coup

Memogate Case; Chief Justice dispels fears of a military coup

Islamabad, Friday, December 23, 2011: Chief Justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhary today remarked on Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani’s yesterday’s speech and said that in presence of a vigilant and watchful judiciary in Pakistan, fears for a military
coup were baseless.

He said that those days were over when the people got verification and authentication for their unconstitutional steps from the courts.

Heading a nine-member larger bench over the memo issue, he told counsel for the petitioners during course of proceedings, that they had already passed a restraining order on November 3, 2007 and what happened afterwards, everybody knew.

People, including lawyers and political parties, were on the roads against the unconstitutional steps and even the democratically elected parliament did not endorse any of those steps, he said.

Referring to the events of 2007, the CJ said, "People were on the roads against unconstitutional steps, including the sitting Prime Minister (Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani), who himself was on the Constitution Avenue during that time."

"It is a great achievement that even commander of armed forces had submitted his statement before the court. Everyone shows trust in the courts to conduct a probe, including Chief of the Army Staff and Hussain Haqqani," he added.

He said now everyone had realized that institutions should be strengthened.

He told the counsel to be assured that they were sitting there and there would be no more take-overs through unconstitutional steps.

He said the judges were bound by their oath to protect and defend the Constitution.

"Only the Constitution will prevail in the country and nothing else," he added.

The bench in its order directed Attorney General for Pakistan (AG) Molvi Anwarul Haq to seek instructions from the Prime Minister over submission of a comprehensive statement regarding a press conference in which certain members of Parliament belonging to PPP
had ridiculed judiciary.

The bench in its order said that the statement placed on record by the Attorney General was not acceptable.

The bench expressing its displeasure over the contents of statement observed that if this was the stance of the government, then how government offices premises were used by the private party members to ridicule judiciary.

Short URL: https://www.newspakistan.pk/?p=7191

Posted by Fayyaz Yaseen on Dec 23 2011. Filed under Pakistan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry