May 02, 2008	Friday	Rabi-us-Sani 25, 1429

PESHAWAR, May 1: Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam Chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman has accused both Pakistan People’s Party and Pakistan Muslim League-N of deviating from the Charter of Democracy on the issue of judges and said that the independence of judiciary should not be linked to reinstatement of some ‘individuals’.

“We believe in independence of judiciary and respect personalities, but reinstatement of deposed chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry should not be linked to independence of judiciary,” Maulana Fazlur Rehman said while addressing administrators and teachers of seminaries from across the province here on Thursday. Over 1500 Ulema and seminary teachers attended the function.

The Maulana said that the judges’ issue should be resolved on the basis of the Charter of Democracy signed by the PPP and PML-N in London in 2006. Unfortunately, he said, both parties had forgotten the charter and instead focussed only on the Murree Declaration.

He said the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) had been criticised for supporting the 17th Amendment, but now the coalition parties were removing the Article 58(2)b and not touching the ‘controversial’ amendment.

He said the Charter of Democracy categorically stated that a commission would recommend the names of the judges who had refused to take oath under the PCO. Now, he said, both parties had started fighting on the reinstatement of the judges who had taken the oath under the PCO in 2000.

Criticising the deposed chief justice, Maulana Fazl said he had given a verdict against the Hasba Bill which was aimed at promulgating Islamic laws in the NWFP. Similarly, he said, the deposed chief justice had stopped candidates with seminary certificates from contesting local bodies’ elections.