Aitzaz-Ahsan-670
— Photo by Reuters

LAHORE: Senior PPP leader Senator Aitzaz Ahsan said here on Tuesday that the government would bring another prime minister if the judiciary sent Raja Pervez Ashraf packing for not implementing the judgment in the NRO implementation case.

Talking to reporters, he said: “The judiciary is crossing the limits (set for it under the) Constitution.” Parliament, he said, would keep electing prime ministers if the judiciary continued to disqualify one after another.

Mr Ahsan, who was the counsel for disqualified prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, said the president had complete immunity under the Constitution and the judiciary could not change it.

He accused some political elements of using the judiciary to achieve their nefarious objectives and regretted that when Nawaz Sharif had gone to the court a commission was set up with a notice and a prime minister was sent home in two weeks when Imran Khan filed a petition.

Barrister Ahsan was of the opinion that the judiciary should take up other cases instead of focusing on such petitions. “Neither the judiciary can dissolve parliament nor can the army intervene. The parliament will complete its term,” he said.

He said: “I was earlier with the judiciary because it was on the right and today I am with the one that is on the right.”

Online adds: Answering a question, Barrister Ahsan said: “There is no middle way in the contempt proceedings against Prime Minister Ashraf as the Supreme Court is bound to remove prime ministers in contempt cases like it did in the case of Yousuf Raza Gilani.”

But he said the government would never indulge in any tactics to degrade the judiciary. He said the judiciary was on the wrong track in the NRO implementation case.

Mr Ahsan said Article 248 of the Constitution clearly restricted the prime minister from proceeding against the president, but the judiciary was on a mission to send elected prime ministers home instead of honouring the Constitution.

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