Not confident Justice Mansoor will be able to control SC judges: Bilawal

KARACHI: Pakistan Peoples Party Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has said he respects both Justice Qazi Faez Isa and Justice Mansoor Ali Shah and that is a matter of record, but “I don’t have the confidence that [Justice] Mansoor Ali Shah Saab will be able to control the other judges on his Supreme Court”.

Some of the judges have proved several times in the 63-A Practice and Procedure case that they attempted to go beyond their constitutional limits to achieve their political objectives, Bilawal said in an interview with a private TV channel on Tuesday.

Therefore, he said, the government and its coalition partners would ensure that the constitutional amendment was adopted with consensus. He remarked that there is no ideal situation in politics, but this has been his party’s stance since day one that the amendment should be adopted with consensus among all political parties.

Bilawal said the government wants to get the constitutional amendment passed before October 25. He said the parliamentary legislative process gives their sitting government the right to amend the constitutional to bring about reforms in the judiciary.

He was of the opinion that reserved seats decisions were given after the government, before taking its coalition partners into confidence, shared its views with the judiciary about judicial reforms. At that stage, he said, the government again made efforts for judicial reforms, and it was justified under its powers to go for those reforms through the constitutional amendment as soon as possible.

The PPP chairman said that while the judiciary can play its role in every institution, the parliament is told not to interfere in the judiciary.

He remarked that it has been seen for the first time during Justice Qazi Faez Isa’s time that a chief justice is surrendering his powers and sharing them with other judges.

Bilawal noted that the PTI founder gave a controversial statement from the jail just when the government constituted a parliamentary committee for the constitutional amendment, but the government’s doors are still open for the PTI. He asked the PTI to share its position, if any, on the constitutional amendment. However, Bilawal said, the PTI’s political aim is to cause Pakistan to fail.

The PPP believes that the government should be praised and supported if the economy is moving in the right direction, he said.

To a question about harassing parliamentarians and pressurising them into voting for the constitutional amendment, Bilawal said that was not the way to seek votes.

He said the opposition party had been employing every tactic to render the proposed constitutional amendment controversial. He said the PTI founder tried to make the judiciary and establishment controversial through a letter and tweet. but when that strategy failed, the party resorted to picking up weapons and attacking Islamabad and Lahore instead of opting for peaceful protests.

When asked about the Supreme Court’s decision that took away the symbol of bat from the PTI, Bilawal said he had no connection with that and the PTI’s electoral symbol was taken because the party had not acted upon its own constitution.

When asked if the prime minister would appoint the chief of the federal constitutional court, the PPP chairman replied that a final decision on this was yet to be taken. He remarked that it occurred only in Pakistan that judges were appointed by judges and this was not the case outside.

When asked about the proposal of adopting a similar procedure for the appointments of high court judges, Bilawal said the PPP had made no such proposal. On the issue of transfer of high court judges, he said he believed that the executive should not have such authority.