May 01, 2007	Tuesday	Rabi-us-Sani 13, 1428

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HYDERABAD, April 30: Former judge of Sindh High Court Rasheed A. Razvi on Monday called for abolition of 20 per cent quota for army officers in civil services arguing that the officers were already governing almost all the institutions of the government.

The former judge said at a dialogue organised by the Sindh Democratic Forum (SDF) at a local hotel that people in Sindh were showing more enthusiasm during the current struggle for the supremacy of judiciary than their fellow countrymen in the Punjab.

Renowned lawyers, political and civil society leaders spoke at the dialogue and called for immediate reinstatement of Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry and withdrawal of presidential reference against him.

Mr Rizvi said that people should not just struggle for ousting the general but they should also aim to prosecute him.

The issue of chief justice concerned every citizen who enjoyed fundamental rights as ordained in the constitution, he said.

He described the chief justice's meeting with president as a commando action and said that the CJP’s refusal to bow to pressure turned him into a hero. He suspected some judges of being part of the conspiracy against the CJP.

Leader of opposition in Sindh Assembly Nisar Ahmed Khuhro said that Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah had made it clear to the members of armed forces in reply to their query after Pakistan came into being that there would be no room for them in the governance and that they would have to serve under people's administration.

Since people were still living in dark ages the army looked upon them as their slaves. Besides, the very survival of civil society had been thrown into question compelling people to look towards the same institutions which had been responsible for bringing things to such a sorry pass, he said.

He criticised previous judicial verdicts validating army rule in the country under the pretext of doctrine of necessity and stressed that today the press had been muzzled as it continued to get advices and the people remained deprived of jobs. The question of missing persons still remained unanswered, he added.

He said that after bringing every institution under its control the present government had taken on the apex court so that the country could not have an independent election commission and an independent judiciary.

He opposed divisions in the ranks of civil society and political parties and said that the legal battle did not concern the legal fraternity alone.

His party was fully prepared to resist the present government because it was a struggle that was to be fought united and not in isolation, he said.

MNA Syed Qurban Ali Shah was critical of the fact that judicial crisis was never discussed in parliament on the ground that it was a sub judice matter but the harassment, confinement and non-provision of facilities to the chief justice were the issues that should be discussed in National Assembly.

He said that ballot had never decided transfer of power in the country and since Musharraf was an army general he would never like to vacate his office honourably.

The MNA said that nowhere in Article 209 was it written that the chief of army staff could call a sitting chief justice to the Army House.

PML-N's Saleem Zia traced the history of military interventions in the country and said that nobody took to streets to resist them and left the dictators do irreparable damages to the country's institutions at will.

Resultantly, he said, the martial laws led to dismemberment of the country, judicial murder of a prime minister, toppling of a government elected through massive mandate, murder of late Nawab Akbar Bugti, unrest in Balochistan and bombing in tribal areas.

It was “now or never” for political parties and the present judicial crisis was a God-gifted opportunity for them to cash in on it, he said and called for the formation of a consensus national government to hold free and fair elections in 90 days so that the issue of martial law should be decided once and for all.

Member of Pakistan Bar Council (PBC) Yousuf Leghari said that “might is right” was law in the country but people should struggle for reversing it into "right is might".

He came down hard on judiciary saying that it had always sided with army and denied people’s rights. Jungle's law prevailed in the country where people were either kidnapped by dacoits or picked up by agencies.

The lawyer exhorted civil society organisations to come forward and support the chief justice and said that as far as the issue of missing persons was concerned superior judiciary should lay down some guidelines till a proper legislation was made.

Dr Qadir Magsi supported chief justice's case and deplored the fact that when Gen Musharraf took over reins of the country civil many society organisations and political parties had directly or indirectly backed him.

He referred to Imran Khan who had since apologised publicly for supporting Musharraf and said that there were still a number of parties which had not learnt any lesson.

He said that he believed that whenever an army general usurped power he used judiciary as a camp office of GHQ and resultantly the judiciary rode roughshod over aspirations of tens of millions of people of this country by giving questionable verdicts.

He demanded withdrawal of reference and restoration of CJP.