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| 08 May 2004 | Saturday | 17 Rabi-ul-Awwal 1425 |
Govt has no right to deport me: Shahbaz
LAHORE, May 7: Exiled PML-N President Mian Muhammad Shahbaz Sharif says the detailed judgment issued by the Supreme Court on his petition doesn't give the government a right to deport him on his return to his country
, scheduled for May 11.
Talking to Dawn by phone from London on Friday, he said the apex court's verdict was self-explanatory. The court, he said, had held that he had the constitutional right to return to and stay in Pakistan.
He said the judgement effectively contradicted repeated statements made by federal ministers for information and interior that the Sharifs could not come back to Pakistan.
"There is nothing that can have primacy over the Constitution. The Supreme Court has held that I have the constitutional right to come to my country and stay there. The government has no right to deport me," the former chief minister said. He said the government would be violating the Constitution and the top court's judgement if it deported him.
"I am a very small fry. If they deport me, they will be damaging the face of Pakistan and compromising the position of the judiciary both at home and abroad. Such a step on their part will also wash away the impression about rule of law in the country," Mr Shahbaz said.
He ducked a question why his elder brother Mian Nawaz Sharif was keeping silent on his plans to return to Pakistan. "I'll not like to comment on it." However, he said that Mian Nawaz Sharif was not only his elder brother but also his leader. He said the PML-N's vote bank belonged to Mian Nawaz Sharif, not him. "I respect him from the core of my heart."
He condemned what he called large-scale arrests and detentions of his party leaders and workers across the country, saying the government seemed unnerved. He said on the one hand the government ministers were saying in chorus that he (Shahbaz) should come and face the cases against him and on the other they were panic-stricken. He alleged that the government was fabricating false cases against him.
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