Call for amending Constitution: Parliament’s joint sitting should vet reference against judges: Rabbani

ISLAMABAD: Former chairman Senate Mian Raza Rabbani Monday said the unbridled power of the federal government and the president to refer a matter of a sitting judge before the Supreme Judicial Council in terms of Article 209, Constitution, 1973, needed to be amended.

Rabbani regretted that it was unfortunate that in order to further a larger political agenda, the judiciary like the media and the common citizen, was being subjected to gagging by using the historic tool of the state of ‘selective applicability of corruption laws’.

“Clauses (5) and (6) of Article 209 of the Constitution, 1973, need to be brought in consonance with Clause (6) of Article 48, Constitution, 1973,” he said here. He explained, “that is before the president can refer a matter under Article 209, Constitution, 1973, he shall have to place the entire material on bases of which the reference if being filed before a joint sitting of Parliament and if it is approved in a joint sitting, the prime minister may cause such matter to be referred to the Supreme Judicial Council”.

“The making of example of judges who dare to pronounce in accordance with the law, in their judgments against the government and or institutions functioning under it, are subjected to the use of Article 209, Constitution, 1973. This started with a judge of the Islamabad High Court and has for the moment culminated in a reference filed by the president against a judge of the Supreme Court under Article 209, Constitution, 1973,” he noted.

The judgments and commission reports, he contended, authored by the judge of the Supreme Court, who was under reference, was making him live a charmed life.