This Parliament is gutless

ISLAMABAD: Former prime minister Mian Nawaz Sharif Monday said there was no democracy, but a worst dictatorship in the country.

Talking to reporter inside the accountability court, Nawaz Sharif severely criticised the censorship being imposed in the country on politicians and media. He said that it doesn’t please him to talk like this, but sometime before, he had talked about judicial martial law. “The situation here in this country is not less than a judicial martial law. Such orders are passed nowadays which were not passed even during martial law,” he said.

“When ‘you’ talk about others, you should have courage to listen what others say about you,” Nawaz said, adding, “They are silencing Nawaz, silencing media and anchorpersons. This is not a country that belongs to a single person, but it is a country of 220 million people. They also want to be listened and they also have a worth.

He further said that the chief justice can visit the hospitals, check whether or not transport is available somewhere, and also check the rates of potatoes, onions and peas, but he should first visit his own courts where millions of cases are pending without adjudication. Years after years, the poor people keep waiting for justice. Someone is wailing for his five-marla plot that is being occupied and also there are orphans who are waiting for justice since decades. They should go and visit such bereaved families waiting for the justice.

He continued, “You should visit your own subordinate courts and do your own work first. It is not your duty to summon a chief minister and insult him.” To a question that the Indian parliament has moved a resolution to impeach their incumbent chief justice, Nawaz said such questions should be asked from him that could be heard or answered. To another question that whether they want to discuss the issue of judiciary at the parliamentary forum, Nawaz said this parliament has no guts and powers to pursue such matters. He said the next parliament would see such issue.

When asked to comment on the statement of the NAB Chairman Justice (R) Javed Iqbal that no one can pull strings of the NAB, Nawaz in lighter vein said that let him first do away with these cases formed against him. “They are forming different other cases as well like why I widened a 20 feet road to 24 feet,” he said.

Nawaz said that a prime minister, who wholeheartedly served this country, brought CPEC, restored peace in Karachi and completed infrastructure projects, is being rewarded by forming corruption cases against him.

There is nothing in these cases, but they are trying their level best to convict me as they wish that the judges should be vindicated through this decision, Nawaz said.

Nawaz said well-known legal experts are criticising this judgment for not being sound. “On the basis of that flimsy decision they first disqualified me, deprived me from the party presidency and then on the basis of same decision, they disqualified me for life to take part in politics. How they will answer to the history and the future generations,” he said.

Talking about the public meeting of Pukhtun Tahaffuz Movement (PTM), Nawaz said that it is quite unfortunate that the meeting venue was flooded with water. He said it should not have been done and whosoever did this, was quite unfortunate.

“There should have been no obstruction for the PTM public meeting. One cannot take away someone’s right of speech. I feel ashamed but this is not a democratic country at all,” he said. He once again repeated the saying of Ugandan politician Idi Amin Dada that “There is a freedom of speech but I cannot guarantee your freedom after speech”.

The former prime minister said the statement of Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) chief Sirajul Haq about the Senate elections was quite meaningful. “At last, the truth has come to surface,” Nawaz said.

“We had been continuously saying that the election of chairman Senate has been done at the behest of someone else. The PTI is scolding its provincial assembly members for selling their votes. I think Imran Khan should also be reprimanded asking him that at whose behest, he voted for the PPP’s chairman Senate. What change PTI can bring about,” he said.

Nawaz said Imran should also inquire Chaudhry Sarwar how he was elected as senator. “In these Senate elections, only the PML-N has been vindicated and the point of view of our allied parties head like Fazlur Rehman, Mehmood Achakzai and Hasil Bazinjo has proven right,” he said. About Shahbaz Sharif’s visits to Karachi, Nawaz said he has asked Shahbaz to visit Sindh and KP. Nawaz also felt quite irritated by the call of court hawker and said “look! How he calls our names ‘Nawaz Sharif Waghaira’. Even when I am sitting inside here, he would say Nawaz Sharif Waghaira.”