LAHORE, March 16: Barrister Aitzaz Ahsan, one of the main leaders of the lawyers’ movement, expressed the hope on Monday that Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry would neither hear the case challenging the National Reconciliation Ordinance nor the review petition to be filed by the federal government against disqualification of the Sharif brothers, to demonstrate his impartiality.

Responding to questions at a press conference, he said since beneficiaries of the National Reconciliation Ordinance were against Justice Iftikhar “we hope he himself would not hear the case against NRO in larger interest of justice”.

Mr Ahsan said Justice Iftikhar had not heard the case against Pervez Musharraf’s presidential election.

In reply to a question, he said that according to rules of the Supreme Court a review petition could be heard only by the judges who had given the original verdict, hence Chief Justice Iftikhar could not hear the review petition against disqualification of the Sharif brothers.

He hoped the government would extend all cooperation to the chief justice and fulfil the promise made by Benazir Bhutto.
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