LONDON, July 5: Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has termed the independence of judiciary as “the cornerstone” of objectives of the multi-party conference saying the time has come for the nation to bury the doctrine of necessity forever.

Talking to a private TV channel here, the PML-N chief hailed the stern directives of the bench while hearing the petition filed by the Chief Justice of Pakistan on Monday and said that the whole nation now looked towards the superior judiciary to assert its independence.

He said that order of the court to ban intelligence agency’s operations from the SC premises were symptomatic of a judiciary that was well on its way to break the shackles of constraint imposed on by anti-democratic forc es.

Mr Sharif said the people of Pakistan were now in no mood to tolerate interference in judicial affairs by any institution of the state and they expected the judiciary to vindicate itself by delivering justice in the face of might.