PPP 'agrees so far' on constitutional court formation amid calls for judicial package

QUETTA: Amid concerns of the opposition over the 'controversial' constitutional package, PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari has said that his party has assented to the ruling PML-N’s proposal for establishing a federal constitutional court as yet.

“We have no issue if anyone of the top two judges sits in the constitutional court,” he said while speaking at a Balochistan High Court (BHC) Bar's session in Quetta on Tuesday.

Bilawal, the former foreign minister, elucidated that his struggle was for the constitutional amendment and not for the incumbent chief justice, Qazi Faez Isa. "After the struggle of 30 years, we have decided to form a constitutional court."

Expressing huge respect for Justice Mansoor Ali Shah, he asked if the superior court judge would accept the constitutional court if the Constitution endorsed it.

The government last month pushed the proposed constitutional package amid speculation about a potential extension in the tenure of Chief Justice Isa, who is set to retire in October this year, following the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) request in August for the early issuance of a notification regarding the appointment of the next top judge.

Despite claims of securing the "magic number" needed to push the bill through, the government failed to table the amendments in the parliament and postponed its move indefinitely.

To pass the constitutional amendments, the government is short of 13 votes in the National Assembly (NA) and nine in the Senate.

The PPP chairman said the constitutional amendment was imperative to bring equality as he knew how difficult it was to get justice in the country. Nobody should be a sacred cow here, he added.

He said the charter of democracy’s first demand was setting up the federal constitutional court.

“We have been striving for judicial reforms for ages, but you want to let the same judiciary system prevail. There are so many cases that are not heard as every few months a [fresh] political case emerges,” he said, adding that he wished there was a constitutional court at the provincial level as well.

He said they wanted such a system that could secure justice for people in the future. He said the constitutional court was not a new thing for him as he had been working on it since his mother promised it.

He was not doing it for a specific judge and it was part of their manifesto, he said. “It cannot happen that I forget my manifesto in the fight and vote for someone else’s manifesto,” he said.