KARACHI, April 5: President of the Supreme Court Bar Association Munir A. Malik hopes the reference against Chief Justice Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry would eventually be withdrawn unconditionally. However, he says that ‘faces involved in the process’ must be unveiled.

Mr Malik, who is a member of the defence panel for Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, said at a ‘Meet the Press’ programme at the Karachi Press Club on Thursday that reinstatement of the CJP would make no difference to the government because Justice Iftikhar harboured no grudge against anyoneê. (H)e always upheld judiciary’s dignity and followed the rule of law.

With the reinstatement of the CJP, he said, the three pillars of the state — judiciary, legislature and executive — would function in a balanced manner under the watchful eye of the press.

Mr Malik said the action taken by President Gen Pervez Musharraf against Justice Iftikhar was meant to be a message for other judges.

He said the CJP had been ‘suspended’ because the government was not sure about the kind of ruling he would make on some important cases to be decided this year. Some of the cases that would have come before the CJP are about Musharraf’s re-election as president from the present assemblies and his eligibility for the post and cases about missing people. Another important case, he said, was about whether a person with dual citizenship could be a member of parliament or prime minister.

He said the constitution guaranteed rights and protection to all citizens and no one had the authority to pick up and detain any citizen, adding that the government itself had admitted that the number of missing people was 43. He said that intelligence agencies were behind the current situation, including the attack on the offices of a television channel in Islamabad.

He praised Justice Iftikhar for refusing to resign and deciding to face the charges against him. About the status of the Supreme Judicial Council, he said it was simply a council of inquiry and not a binding authority.

He said under Article 209 of the Constitution, neither the president nor the SJC could make any judge dysfunctional.