LAHORE: Pakistan People’s Party Chairman Bilawal Zardari Bhutto has said politicians and establishment made mistakes in the past but the judiciary committed blunders.
He said many wrong decisions were made and judicial murders were committed in the past while the PPP founder and former prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was also its victim.
He termed the National Action Plan as the ‘N League Plan’, saying terrorists were not being arrested in the Punjab.
Why there is silence over the corruption of the ‘prime minister of Lahore’, he questioned.
In a wide-ranging address covering issues of democracy, constitutionalism and the rule of law, Bilawal called for revisiting the procedure for the appointment of judges, the setting up of a Constitution Court, regulating the use of suo moto powers, provision of speedy and inexpensive justice, legislation to prevent misuse of blasphemy law and ending the culture of sacred cows in fighting corruption.
He also addressed issues in the National Action Plan, describing it as “Noon League Action Plan” that had failed in stopping the banned outfits from resurrecting under other names. “I urge you to give a thought whether the independence of the judiciary is guaranteed by vesting the power to appoint judges by judges alone or is it best served when the power to appoint judges is diffused between parliament, the president, the prime minister and the bar council”, he asked the galaxy of lawyers present at the bar address on Monday morning.
He said the restoration of the judiciary in March 2009 as a result of public demonstrations created some sort of euphoria that led some to believe that a new era of independent judiciary had dawned but some people thought otherwise, he said.
He said during 2010-13, the Judicial Commission made 126 nominations of judges in the Supreme Court and the five high courts while the parliamentary committee disagreed with only eight appointments. However, the court overturned all the decisions of the parliamentary committee.
He recalled that President Asif Zardari then filed a Constitutional Reference seeking opinion on the roles of the JC, the PC and the president in the appointment of the judges and quoted from the verdict that the role of president and prime minister was no more than mere post offices.
The chief justice alone initiating nominations, the JC making its own rules and conducting business in secrecy while neither president nor prime minister nor elected representatives had any role in the judges’ appointments.
Judges alone selecting judges was not conducive to promotion of a bench with judges of divergent world views on issues in jurisprudence. It is not the question of integrity or competence of judges but an issue of diversity of judicial minds that must adorn the bench, he said.
He said our failures were collective. “The politicians made mistakes, the establishment has made mistakes and the judiciary also has made huge mistakes,” he said, recalling past judicial doctrines of “necessity”, or ‘a successful revolution creates its own justification’, the judicial murder of an elected prime minister and opposing judicial verdicts in cases involving a prime minister from Larkana and a prime minister from Lahore. But let us not dwell too much on the past and move on, he said.
About the role of parliament, he said the Constitution has clearly laid down the scheme of powers in which lawmaking is the responsibility of parliament, the judiciary interprets the laws and the executive implements the laws and quoted articles from the Constitution that laid special emphasis on the role of the parliament in Constitution and law-making.
Bilawal Bhutto Zaradri also called for setting up Constitution Court with equal representation of all federating unites to decide constitutional issues saying that it was unfinished agenda of the Charter of Democracy signed in May 2006 between his mother Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif on behalf of their parties. Bilawal said the court’s power to decide alone constitutional issues was an “awesome power”.
If this awesome power is not exercised with great care and humility, it can undermine the democratic process itself and easily become what many call a judicial tyranny, he said.
About the use of suo moto powers, he said it would be worthwhile to make a comparative study of how many suo moto notices were taken in PPP government and how many after the PPP was no longer in power.
Bilawal called for a poor-friendly judicial system and vowed that the PPP will provide it to the people. About corruption, he said it was a serious issue and needed to be tackled but cautioned against using it as a brush to paint black only one section of society. We must challenge the double standard in pursuing corruption cases adding also “we cannot win the fight against corruption unless we do away with sacred cows syndrome”. It is wrong to have one set of laws for one section of society and another law for another section of society. The fight against corruption must be across the board and above the board, he said.
Bilawal also called for addressing issues in intellectual corruption and constitutional subversion. Those who upheld the constitutional deviations, validated military takeovers and dismantled the democratic structures have also to answer many questions about honesty, he said.
He asked whether we should not pursue those who have subverted the Constitution or validated constitutional subversion through PCOs and court verdicts. He said the PPP was deeply concerned and condemned the growing misuse of blasphemy law for silencing dissent and for oppressing minorities and welcomed the recent Supreme Court verdict and its call for looking into this issue. He expressed the hope that parliament will take note of the Supreme Court verdict and make appropriate legislation to prevent the misuse of the blasphemy law.
He questioned whether the government was sincere in implementing the National Action Plan to fight militancy and extremism. He said the APS martyrs had united the nation which was in disarray as many asked whether the war against militancy was our war or not, the Punjab chief minister even asked the Taliban to spare his province because he shared their world view and some demanded that the Taliban be allowed to open offices in Peshawar.
Banned organisations continue to function under other names, he said and quoted from replies given to questions asked in parliament to prove his point.
In March 2013, during the PPP government a law was passed under which a banned organisation was not allowed to reappear under a different name but the present government is not even aware of it.
He said he called it the Noon League Action Plan because no action has been taken against extremist militant organisations in the Punjab.
The National Action Plan called for reforming Fata but no reforms have been introduced in the tribal areas and the prime minister has not even acknowledged a personal letter from the former president urging him to expeditiously adopt the bill passed by the Senate giving them the right to approach superior judiciary for the enforcement of their rights.
He said the interior minister says that he did not want to coordinate the activities under the NAP and accepted to do it unwillingly because the prime minister had said so.
The survival of our country depends upon democracy, he said, adding that it is the duty of every individual and every institution to play its part in strengthening democracy.
Former prime minister Yusuf Raza Gilani, Punjab President Manzoor Wattoo, Senator Ch. Aitzaz Ahsan, Senator Jahangir Badar, former SCBA president Asma Jahangir, Latif Khosa, Naveed Chaudhary and Sohail Malik, a large number of party workers, lawyers attended the ceremony.
