June 24, 2008	Tuesday	Jamadi-us-Sani 19, 1429

LAHORE, June 23: Criticising the Lahore High Court decision, the PML-N said on Monday that it would announce its future line of action within 24 hours.

Party president and Punjab chief minister Mian Shahbaz Sharif termed it a political rather than a judicial decision.

He said the verdict had broken all the past records of rigging.

Wondering how a two-time elected prime minister who had been declared as eligible to contest the 2002 polls could be disqualified in 2008, PML-N general secretary Iqbal Zafar Jhaggra said the party’s final stance on the issue would be given after legal experts’ opinion within 24 hours.

Alleging that the LHC verdict was the outcome of the pressure of “remnants of the dictator”, he said the judges feared about their future after the sacking of their 60 colleagues in Nov 2007.

He said that the PCO-judiciary allowed a man in uniform to contest the presidential election against all constitutional provisions and democratic norms but barred “a leader who enjoyed support of 86 per cent Pakistanis, as depicted in an international survey, from entering parliament”.

He said that the judges had risked their repute while their verdict would fail to deviate Nawaz from the war he had launched for free judiciary.

Mr Jhaggra said that the country would be facing crisis after crisis till Gen Musharraf was there calling the shots from the presidency.

PML-N spokesman Dr Asif Kirmani said that on one hand all cases were being withdrawn under the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) and on the other Nawaz was being penalised though then President Rafiq Tarar had pardoned the punishment given to the former prime minister under the so-called high treason case.

He demanded that the PPP should openly condemn the verdict which, he alleged, had been given under pressure from the presidency.

MNA Khwaja Saad Rafiq, without naming the senior coalition partner in the PPP, said it was time “to ask our allies that if they want to side with democracy and the nation, they will have to do two jobs, impeaching Musharraf and restoring the deposed judges”.

He said that Nawaz would not approach the Supreme Court for relief as it would mean accepting the PCO judges sitting there.

PML-N MPAs who had abandoned the budget debate immediately after they knew the verdict and came on The Mall in protest, said they would hold another demonstration on Tuesday outside the Punjab Assembly building.