April 19, 2008	Saturday	Rabi-us-Sani 12, 1429

LAHORE, April 18: Former Supreme Court judge Wajihuddin Ahmed told a ‘meet the press’ at the Lahore Press Club on Friday that any constitutional package, which entailed the restoration of deposed judges, could not be made against the basic structure of the Constitution.

He said parliament had to work in the parameters of the Constitution. He said in the presence of a written constitution, neither parliament nor the judiciary was supreme but the constitution itself. He said the government could not avoid the judges’ issue, and it would have to restore the judges in the benefit of the people in letter and spirit.

The retired judge said parliament would restore judges at all costs because it did not have any other option. He said Gen Musharraf (retired) would not use 58-(2) b in case parliament restored the judges.

He said the ruling coalition should know that lawyers and civil society had paved way for them to power corridors. He warned the coalition if it ignored the mandate to do the needful, it would not survive for a long time.

He said he had objected to (deposed) chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry’s meeting with Pakistan People’s Party co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari. Later, I came to know that other judges had accompanied him for offering condolences over the death of Benazir Bhutto, he said.

He said Pakistan faced a complex situation because of its untapped oil reservoir. He added the world powers, vying to access the precious resource, made it difficult for Pakistan to maintain its balance.

He said the war on terror was just an American endeavor to access these reservoirs. He said the Oct 12 coup and the subsequent “sham” elections held in 2002 were part of the US conspiracy to misuse the country.

The judge said the US was under a wrong impression that it could subjugate the people of Pakistan by using Gen Musharraf as their puppet. He demanded the US think afresh on how to deal with the Pakistanis, who could not be dictated anymore.

He said the US was also making its policies along these lines as a Congress team, which recently visited Pakistan had said that the welfare of the people was their priority.

He said the provision of justice meant substantially raising the salaries of the judges of lower courts, who drew only a Rs30,000 salary while a superior court judge drew Rs150,000 per month. He said raising the salaries of the lower courts' judges would attract competent lawyers towards judiciary career.

The judge said there was need to turn Pakistan into a welfare state along the line of the speech the Quaid-i-Azam delivered on August 11. He added Pakistanis were not against the war on terror and considered the US its friend.

He said the Pakistan wanted an independent judiciary, the rule of law and a democracy that prevailed in the US itself.