960414

Javed Iqbal tells senate

Mar laws meant

to save country

from collapse

SIKANDER HAYAT

ISLAMABAD: Martial laws in Pakistan have never been the acts of military adventurism but the earnest efforts to save the country from structural collapse, Senator Javed Iqbal said here on Sunday.

Speaking in the Senate on an adjournment motion moved by MQM Senator Aftab Ahmad Shaikh, he said the criticism that superior judges have always tended to "legitimise" the Martial laws was unfair because the military intervened only when it became inescapable.

Javed Iqbal, who himself has been a former Chief Justice of Lahore High Court and a judge of the Supreme Court, sharply criticised Z.A. Bhutto, arguing that the late prime minister went a great length in subordinating the judiciary to the wishes and whims of the executive. While Bhutto amended the Constitution just to ease out one chief justice, he tried level best to pronounce mad another judge.

Commenting on the government's "hesitation" to fully implement the recent judgement of the Supreme Court in the judges case the opposition senator exhorted the National Assembly and the Senate to ensure the implementation without justice the country cannot be sustained, he warned.

The latest Supreme Court judgement is the second significant step towards the fulfilment of the apex court's role in advancing the concept of justice, he said, explaining that the first step in that direction was the reinstatement of the Nawaz Sharif government in 1993. But the decision of the Supreme Court was soon subverted by forcing Nawaz Sharif to step down, he added.

Federal Minister Sher Afgan, speaking on the motion, violently differed from the position taken by Javed Iqbal, restating the official position that the Supreme Court is not expected to "change" the Constitution, as only Parliament is empowered to do that.

Citing instances from history the minister said Queen Anne was guillotined when the judges of her times falsely implicated her in a case. Hazrat Ali, he said, had written to the governor of Egypt "to appoint spies who should monitor the conduct of the judges," and if the latter were found guilty of improbity they should be sacked and humiliated.

The House adjourned at the time of Mughrib prayers when Sher Afgan was still on his feet.