26th amendment no answer to judicial overreach: ex-PM Abbasi

Former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi said on Tuesday that the 26th Constitutional Amendment was based on malicious intent as it was brought solely to prevent a specific person from becoming the chief justice.

Addressing lawyers at the city courts, he termed the amendment a huge blow to the country’s judicial system, warning that it would cease to function if it is not supported. He said the amendment had basic flaws that would create huge problems.

“The biggest proof of malicious intent is that lawmakers in the National Assembly and the Senate sat all day and night to pass the amendment and none of them had seen it,” Abbasi maintained, wondering how those who were ready to pass a constitutional amendment without even reading or understanding it would pick judges and chief justice and assess and decide if a judge was competent or not. “I disagree with this approach. We shouldn’t do this. It will create huge problems. There is still time to correct it,” Abbasi, who is also convener of the Awam Pakistan Party, stressed. “There is no doubt that legislation and constitutional amendments are parliament’s right, but this right is not unbridled. Parliament cannot alter the constitutional framework,” he went on. “This amendment has done away with the check and balance mechanism of the constitution.”

The former premier said the judiciary would now be subservient to the executive and act on its whims. “The rot in the judiciary started with selection and appointment of judges. The judicial system will work only when you will appoint people with competence, integrity and moral authority as judges,” he added.

He said the judiciary cannot be absolved of the responsibility for the rot. “The judiciary has also overstepped and made things worse, but that doesn’t mean you chop off your neck when you have a headache,” he opined. He said the amendment was not an answer to what happened in the past four years when the judiciary got involved in politics and decisions were made as per its whishes as the then chief justice would constitute a bench of his choice to decide cases of political nature.

“We stood by then chief justice Qazi Faez Isa when then government attempted to pressurise him and push him out of way. It is unfortunate that the same Qazi Faez Isa obstructed the senior pusine judge’s path to becoming chief justice,” he lamented.

“If a competent person doesn’t become chief justice, it would be the country’s loss.” He opined that the senior most judges of the Supreme Court had the capability to fix the system.

He said the government was bent on destroying institutions just to strengthen itself and that it brought amendments solely to keep courts from getting in its way and question its actions.

Abbasi said around 50 per cent of sitting senators had been elected after paying money and feared that judges may also be appointed in a similar manner in future.