Justice Faez Isa resents road blockades

ISLAMABAD: Justice Qazi Faez Isa, senior judge of the Supreme Court, has expressed dismay over the road blockades in the federal capital by protesting government employees.

In an open letter, Justice Qazi Faez Isa said, “Self-respect and freedom of movement are the fundamental constitutional rights of every citizen”. He said that he saw traffic halted while he was going to the court on the morning of November 8. On inquiry, he was told the president had to pass through this route, he wrote in the letter.

Hundreds of vehicles carrying thousands of people had been stopped. “People must have been going to hospitals or to do their necessary work,” he said. It was very sad to see that was happening in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, he resented.

“The sovereignty of Allah is acknowledged first in the Constitution of Pakistan. Quaid-i-Azam had said the meaning of having a state is that we can live as free people. A state where the principles of Islamic social justice are practised freely,” he pointed out.

He further said in the letter he had left for house on foot as usual from the Supreme Court the other evening when he saw the road blocked by a dozen protesting government workers.

“The other side of the road had been turned into a dual carriageway where most of the vehicles with official number plates were illegally parked on yellow lines,” he deplored. He said as a citizen, he inquired from the DIG operations and the deputy commissioner. “I asked why the vehicles were parked illegally,” he said.