KARACHI: The legal fraternity on Tuesday ‘condemned’ the acts of National Assembly deputy speaker of dismissing the no-confidence motion against prime minister, and dissolution of NA by the president on the advice of PM.

The Sindh Bar Council (SBC) and the Sindh High Court Bar Association (SHCBA) also strongly criticised the nomination by interim PM Imran Khan of former chief justice of Pakistan Gulzar Ahmed as caretaker prime minister and said that if Justice Ahmed accepted it, it would be tantamount to endorsing such acts.

Besides, the representatives of the legal fraternity said that Justice Ahmed had retired around a couple of months ago and under Article 207 of the Constitution he could not enter an office of profit before completion of a two-year period after retirement.

They urged the former chief justice to decline the nomination and asked the apex court to form a full court to decide the issue conclusively and save the country from falling into civil disobedience and a deepening constitutional crisis.

SBC describes acts of president, PM, NA deputy speaker as ‘high treason’

SBC presser

SBC vice chairman Zulfiqar Ali Jalbani and other office-bearers told a press conference that the acts of the deputy speaker and the president of Pakistan to quash the no-confidence motion and dissolve the national assembly were unconstitutional and illegal.

The SBC resolved that it stood for the rule of law and constitutionalism and it believed that a strong parliamentary form of democracy was the foremost important part of the constitution, they added.

They described the acts of the president, prime minister, then deputy speaker and law minister Fawad Chaudhry as “high treason” under Article 6 of the Constitution.

They further asserted that such acts were ‘subversion’ of the Constitution and its basic structure and it would create unrest, insurrection, constitutional disaster and threat to the democracy in the country and the SBC had already challenged the same before the apex court.

On nomination of ex-CJP Ahmed, the SBC said: “The unfortunate nomination, at this point of time, when the entire country is struggling against a political and constitutional turmoil, will only strengthen the perception that the Imran Khan government is, and has been, on the ‘same page’ as the apex judiciary and that will also badly tarnish the public opinion about the independence of the judiciary”.

SHCBA

The SHCBA in a statement issued by its president Shahab Sarki and secretary Omer Soomro also strongly censured the dismissal of no-confidence motion and dissolution of the NA.

It described the nomination of the former CJP as an ‘ill-considered’ decision.

The SHCBA was of the view that the present constitutional crisis necessitated a full court so that the apex court could conclusively lay down the law and prevent future prime ministers from unconstitutional actions during vote of no-confidence.

It further asserted that dismissal of an elected NA on a ‘whimsical’ pretext of a ‘foreign conspiracy’ by the speaker/deputy speaker was entirely without jurisdiction and had no discretionary power to suspend vote of no-confidence and let alone on the ‘outlandish’ pretext of declaring and condemning around 200 elected parliamentarians as “agents of a foreign conspiracy”.

Published in Dawn, April 6th, 2022