Sunday, December 18, 2011

Pakistan’s elected parliament must remove Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry




Author: Ahmed Iqbalabadi

Recently our fellow contributor and supporter, Peja Mistri wrote an excellent article titled “IMC – A monumental failure”. The article was written by Peja with apparent frustration due to the approach of Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry’s conduct in court and the lofty hopes people had pinned with the restored judiciary. This article never reached Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry as it was not published in The News and Jang, which are the two newspapers IMC and his fellow judges reach. It was not covered by Geo News, which is the channel they see and for sure it was not penned by Ansar Abbasi, Shaheen Sehbai, Hamid Mir or Mohammed Mallick that would require Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry to pounce on any opportunity to make a joke of the judicial system he is supposed to head and protect.

Last week, a renowned columnist, Kamran Shafi penned an open letter to Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry which had all humble submissions for him to consider. Published in a newspaper which apparently doesn’t go through the partial views of Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, Express Tribune, Kamran Shafi has very simply asked “that if Mansoor Ijaz is considered to have told the truth about exactly who wrote the memo and at whose behest, surely he has spoken the truth about the ISI and its dreaded ‘S’ Section too?”.

A few weeks back, a big time supporter of Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry and a Pervez Musharraf hater (read Pervez Musharraf and not military rule hater), Matiullah Jan conducted an interview of Justice Khalil ur Rehman Ramday and called referred to the Lawyers Movement that will be noted in history “sunheray huroof” (Golden letters). Let’s hope Matiullah was being sarcastic, but knowing his love for the Lawyers Movement, we think he was quite serious.

There are some questions that we would like to pose to the readers on the conduct of the Lawyers Movement and the restored judges, specifically the CJP.

* Was it the Lawyers Movement that dislodged Musharaf or was it the result of 2008 General Elections that paved the way for the ouster of the General?

* Hasn’t the Lawyers Movement restored some of the most biased and compromised judges in Pakistan; judges that had validated a military coup and sustained it for 8 years and were all PCO and LFO judges having given an Oath, not the Constitution of Pakistan but to a military dictator?

* Hasn’t the Lawyers Movement restored judges that are brazenly Pro- PML N, Pro-murderers, pro-terrorists and anti-PPP and anti-folk singers?

* Hasn’t the Lawyers Movement restored judges (LHC CJ) made public statements of bigotry where the blame Pakistan’s persecuted and peaceful Hindu community for terrorism and NOT the Taliban who shameless take credit for them.

* Hasn’t the Lawyers Movement restored judges completely ignored judicial reforms and inducting and promoting judges on merit to the higher judiciary.

* Haven’t the restored judges openly interfered in the executive and legislature and undermined the elected government?

* With the Constitution the will of the people’s representatives, haven’t the restored judges entertained petitions against legislation passed by parliament?

* Is it not the restored judges have placed themselves above the constitution with such invented / borrowed terms as “Basic Structure”

* Have not the restored judges banned social media and search engines in order to placate and please their important Jamaat-e-Islami backers?

* Hasn’t the restored CJ openly made public statements of intent of opposing legislation that would make Pakistan a secular country?

* The anjuman-e-tehseen bahami judges addressed rallies and give each other extensions?

* Are the movement’s restored judges immune to practicing cronyism as many of them are related to the PML N provincial government leaders and ministers?

* Wasn’t it the CJP who gave an epic judgment that a super store be brought down and amenity plot brought back to its previous state? The previous state was a dumping ground in Lines Area, Karachi. We are talking about Makro judgment! Where in the world investors would consider such a judgment as pro-business?

* Wasn’t it the CJP who gave judgment on McDonalds in a public park in Islamabad, which was operating since 2006?

* Didn’t the Supreme Court cause a lot of worries on the Reko Diq project in Balochistan, forcing the operating company to publish full page ads defending themselves? Aren’t these judgments/cases good enough to keep an investor from doing business in the country? (Company Rejoinder, Fact Sheet)

* Didn’t the Supreme Court give a Judgment against promotion of civil servants despite the executive prerogative of a Prime Minister to promote bureaucrats to grade 22?

* Didn’t the CJ called for a conclave of judges last year on rumors that the government was to take away the executive order that restored them?

* Isn’t Khwaja Sharif one of the restored judges who is likely to appear on behalf of Mumtaz Qadri in his appeal against a death sentence?

* Wasn’t it the restored judiciary who freed the rapists of Mukhtaran Mai, which was nothing but a disgusting verdict? Some judge mentioned “How can two brothers rape someone at same time? In our society there’s so much respect for elder brother”

On top of this, we got the shocker of our life when we read that the CJP has accepted a letter written by a Canadian Pakistani as a petitioner in the “memogate” scandal and issued fresh notices to the President, Prime Minister, ISI Chief and former Ambassador Husain Haqqani!!!! Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, please read our website and use the material against yourself, your partners in judiciary, media and the intelligence to take suo moto notices!

Looking at all the points mentioned above, we can safely say that during the last two and half years, Chief Justice and his colleagues have made a mockery of the judicial system only focusing on the political government and playing to the galleries that has their mai-baaps (Army) and humnawas (Media) sitting! Question is, will another Naeem Bukhari stand up and write a letter demanding action against CJP? Will Pakistan’s elected parliament stand up to the challenge and take appropriate action by removing Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry from his current post in view of his political bias and anti-democracy tactics? We hope so!

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