PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif addressing a public meeting in Shangla Gali. - Online/File Photo

ISLAMABAD, July 30: The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz resolved on Saturday to forcefully counter any government move “to use the parliament against the judiciary”. It also decided to contact other parliamentary groups “to avert a confrontation between the two institutions”, a party spokesman said.

The decision was made by senior members and office-bearers of the party during a meeting chaired by PML-N president Nawaz Sharif in Murree, the party’s information secretary, Mushahidullah Khan, told Dawn.

He said the PML-N decided to resist the government’s likely move to bring a resolution or legislation aimed at undermining the judiciary during the National Assembly session beginning on Monday.

He said Mr Sharif was expected to preside over a meeting of the PML-N parliamentary party before the start of the assembly session on Monday afternoon to devise the party strategy for the expected debate.

The PML-N, he said, could bring its own resolution asking the government to avoid confrontation with the judiciary and to fully implement the Supreme Court’s judgments.

According to sources in the party, the participants of the meeting expressed their concern over “the growing rift between the government and the judiciary due to non-implementation of the Supreme Court verdicts in a number of important cases”.

The participants said the PML-N had in the past made sacrifices for the cause of independence of judiciary and would go to any lengths to defend it.

A handout issued by the Directorate of Public Relations of the Punjab government quoted participants of the meeting as saying that the parliament was a supreme institution and there was no doubt in its supremacy but any effort to use it as “a shield of corruption” would be resisted and that “every possible effort would be made to stop these sorts of nefarious designs”.

Sardar Zulfiqar Khosa, Ahsan Iqbal, Pervez Rashid, Sardar Mehtab Ahmed Khan, Hanif Abbasi, Rana Sanaullah, Chaudhry Abdul Ghafoor, Mushahidullah Khan, Hamza Shahbaz Sharif, Bilal Yasin, Khurram Dastagir, Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, Raja Ashfaq Sarwar, Capt (retd) Mohammad Safdar, Anwar Kamal and Javed Latif attended the meeting.