ISLAMABAD: Law Min­­ister Azam Nazeer Tarar said on Tuesday that the government would not dissolve the National Assembly to “satisfy someone’s ego” and asked the chief justice of Pakistan to take a decision on the matter of national importance in consultation with senior-most judges.

Talking to the media after a meeting with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, newly appointed attorney general Mansoor Awan and senior lawyer Kamran Murtaza, Mr Tarar said there was no constitutional or legal crisis in Pakistan. “There are only behavioural issues of some individuals,” he said.

The government, he said, was not afraid of polls but a mechanism to ensure a level playing field was necessary before that.

Earlier, speaking outside the court, he said election-related matters and the issues of national importance were interconnected. Even SC members were now calling for introspection, Mr Tarar said and urged the CJP to constitute a larger bench comprising 13 judges to hear the poll case.

He suggested that only two judges, Just­ice Ijazul Ahsan and Justice Mazahar Ali Akbar Naqvi, might not be included in the bench “as they had rec­used voluntarily”.

Meanwhile, the Pakistan Bar Council has demanded that superior courts should never indulge in political affairs to keep the judiciary impartial to uphold the supre­macy of the Cons­titution and the rule of law in the country.

Published in Dawn, March 29th, 2023