PAKISTAN

RAWALPINDI: Eminent lawyer Abdul Hafeez Pirzada, while expressing his views in Geo TV Programme, 'Mery Mutabiq' of Dr Shahid Masood, said that it was not necessary to challenge the 18th Amendment as a whole.

However, he said, some of its articles could be challenged and the court could reject the same. He said the 18th amendment was beyond his comprehension as the four basic elements of the constitution, on which the whole constitution depends, had been violated by parliament.

He said the first pillar is parliamentary democracy under which any party leader is given the power to recall and the prime minister being elected by the people could be called and his membership could be terminated. The prime minister could be called to parliament for a vote of confidence any time. Pirzada said the prime minister needed a simple majority rather than an absolute majority for his election. "The powers under Article 58-2(b) and appointments in the armed forces have been taken from the president but still he enjoys the powers to ask the prime minister to take a vote of confidence," he said, adding: "Definitely this article could be challenged in the court."

According to Pirzada, under this article the prime minister is accountable to the party head and could be sent home any time the party head wants. Abdul Hafeez Pirzada said the second pillar is provincial autonomy. He said it was decided to abolish the concurrent list and give powers to provinces and the most important subject remained under the provincial autonomy agenda since the beginning but the concurrent legislative list was converted to a central legislative list. Hence, the powers were shifted from provinces to Centre, which could also be challenged in the court.

The third pillar, the eminent lawyer said, was about basic human rights. "When human rights are snatched from the masses and given to a single person, who is not bound to get himself elected from the party and brings someone else after removing a public representative, this practice will deprive the masses of their rights," he said.

According to Pirzada, the fourth pillar is the judiciary. He said the 1973 Constitution, the committee of which was headed by him, empowered the Senate standing committee to remove the judges. "When this proposal came to parliament, the then Chief Justice Mehmoodur Rehman told him, as he was the law minister, that three chief justices had tendered resignations on the issue as they could not be accountable to such a large body, that would curtail their freedom. After that all the parties unanimously decided to take back the proposal," he said. Pirzada said this point could also be challenged in the court.

He said the court would be empowered to examine the 18th Amendment after the president would sign the document. He said every legislator had the legislative powers but not the constitutional powers, as both are two different things. He said this parliament was not empowered to change or terminate the basic structure of the Constitution. In such case, he said, they needed to go for a referendum.

Pirzada said Aitzaz Ahsan's talk about the possibility of clash between judiciary and executive was totally wrong. He charged parliament played havoc with the Constitution to benefit some people.

He said it was the duty of parliament to enact laws and the executive was responsible to implement laws but the Supreme Court would decide whether the law was enacted in accordance with the Constitution or not.

To cite an example, he said, if all the Senate and National Assembly members amended the Constitution to make Pakistan part of India, "If they are empowered to do so". "A mother can give birth to a child but could not kill the child. If she does so, she will be punished," he elaborated.

Pirzada said parliament exceeded the limit of its powers and it did not know what it was doing. Senior lawyer, Akram Sheikh, while talking to Shahid Masood, said that he was not surprised or shocked at the attitude of Aitzaz Ahsan.

He said Aitzaz was sitting with him in the court two or three days ago and discussing the petition challenging the judicial commission and Aitzaz told him that if he filed this petition and the Supreme Court admitted it, President Zardari would convene parliament's session in a day and the petition would be scrapped by the evening. He said that parliament would scrap the decision not in a day but in seconds and then what the judges had to suffer, he could guess himself.

While replying to a question regarding the awarding of the contracts of big oil companies to some lawyer leaders and entertain cases of official institutions, Akram Sheikh said there was nothing secret in it.

Imran Khan, while talking about the will of Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto, said besides the language of the will, it was necessary to get the original letter endorsed, as it effected the transfer of the whole party to someone else.

President Supreme Court Bar Association Qazi Anwar said that the writer of the will feels fear while writing the will but there was no mention of it in the will. He said at one place in the will it was written, "I feel the future of Pakistan." but fear of any kind was nowhere mentioned in the will. Qazi Anwar said that the will was written on October 16, 2007. But it did not show where it was written and neither it was known that from where it had come. He said it was a fraud. Qazi Anwar said it seemed it was not the writing of Benazir Bhutto.