ISLAMABAD, April 22: What has turned into a hot battle for judiciary fought on streets and courtrooms for weeks now will enter parliament when the National Assembly meets on Monday for a long delayed session with likely wordy duels on the controversial presidential charge-sheeting and suspension of the chief justice.
Also expected to add to the government’s troubles will be its prolonged standoff with some hardline mullahs and thousands of madressah students who have sent shockwaves across the country by seeking to Talibanise the national capital with impunity.Parliamentary sources said President Pervez Musharraf’s reference against Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry on the disputed charge of misconduct to be probed by the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) would dominate the proceedings of the lower house, which is due to meet at 5pm.
The unusually long recess of about two months appeared to be due to a government reluctance to face a hostile discussion in the 342-seat house while lawyers and political activists were already protesting over the issue, which took a new twist last week after the chief justice’s lawyers went to the Supreme Court itself with a writ petition, challenging the proceedings of the five-judge SJC.
The main opposition parties of the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy (ARD) and the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) have already sent notices to the National Assembly secretariat for moving adjournment motions to seek debates on different events relating to the presidential reference.
The alliances had initially planned last month to requisition sessions of both the National Assembly and the Senate to discuss the judicial crisis created by the presidential action, but they later had second thoughts, fearing parliamentary debates could shift focus from what they were doing on the streets to demonstrate a rare solidarity with the legal community in support of the chief justice.
But no formal notice had yet been sent for a debate on the defiance of state authority in the heart of Islamabad by militant madressah students controlled by the Lal Masjid in Islamabad and their moves to enforce their brand of Islamic morality on the pattern of Afghanistan’s former Taliban rulers.
But the parliamentary sources said the issue was sure to come up with likely denunciation of the militants’ by most members of the house across party lines.
