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| June 24, 2003 | Tuesday | Rabi-us-Sani 23,1424 |
MMA plans to march on Supreme Court
ISLAMABAD, June 23: The Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal has decided to take its protest against the controversial LFO outside parliament, with the first demonstration being planned in front of the Supreme Court.
MMA’s Liaquat Baloch told a press conference here on Monday that the alliance’s central council, which met in Peshawar, had decided to organize a march from parliament to the Supreme Court building to make an “appeal” to the judges not to accept the three-year extension given to them in their retirement age.
He said the date for the protest march would be announced later, after consulting other opposition parties.
The first MMA convention would be held in July, and from August onwards large-scale protest meetings would be held throughout the country, Mr Baloch said.
He said the government was pushing the opposition parties to go to public and was responsible for creating a constitutional deadlock. The MMA still wanted that all the issues should be decided through dialogue, he added.
Asked if the MMA leaders would appear before the Supreme Court which has accepted for hearing a constitutional petition challenging the educational qualification of 68 MMA lawmakers, he said a decision would be taken after talking to the heads of religious institutions. He said such a meeting was slated to be held on Tuesday.
The MMA leadership, he said, believed that the government was trying to blackmail it by challenging their educational qualification, but the alliance would never give in to this blackmail.
He said the MMA central council expressed complete solidarity with the NWFP government, and congratulated it for passing the Shariat Bill. He said the MMA leadership asked the NWFP government to table the Hisba Bill in the provincial assembly.
He said the MMA’s central council condemned the federal government’s action against the provincial government, and vowed to protect it against any federal government move.
He asked the federal government to pay royalty of Rs17 billion to the provincial government, and allow it to work under the constitutional limits.
He said the LFO was illegal, and efforts for the revival of the Constitution would continue. He said the MMA would not accept a uniformed president, the National Security Council, and insertion of Article 58(2)(B) in the Constitution. He said that on June 28, the opposition parties would first assemble in the parliament lodges and from there they would go to the National Assembly and take part in the no-confidence proceedings against the Speaker.
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