ISLAMABAD, Feb 4: It was all brickbats, and no bouquet, for President Pervez Musharraf on Monday when the Senate debated his controversial 42-day emergency rule, which the opposition called a “virtual rape of the Constitution” that the post-election parliament would not validate.

While all opposition speakers denounced the president’s Nov 3 emergency proclamation as a “mini martial law” designed mainly to remove a judicial challenge to his candidacy for another term of office and strangulate the media, not a single voice was raised from the treasury benches to justify the extra-constitutional step he took in his capacity as army chief.

Even the caretaker government’s Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Syed Afzal Haider, who wound up the debate on the last day of an opposition-requisitioned session, had little to justify the move although he complimented the president for keeping the emergency short and accepting a cabinet advice to lift it on Dec 15.

The veteran lawyer, whose association with the 81-day-old caretaker cabinet is seen by critics as a far cry from his earlier role as a legal activist, seemed humbled in the absence of any support from President Musharraf’s one-time vocal loyalists from the formerly ruling coalition, who still occupy the treasury benches, and after an earlier failure to block an opposition privilege motion that blamed the government for the Senate’s non-completion of a mandatory calendar of 90 working days of business in the current parliamentary year.

But the minister went to great lengths to question the vows made by opposition leader Mian Raza Rabbani and others from the opposition benches not to let the future parliament validate the president’s emergency decrees — such as amendments to the Constitution, the removal of about 60 judges of the superior courts under a Provisional Constitution Order (PCO) and new restrictions on the media while both judiciary and parliament had validated wrong actions of previous military rulers.

He compensated for a lack of arguments in support of the emergency by punctuating his soft speech with Persian and Urdu couplets and finishing with an advice to the opposition to “forget the past and proceed further” rather than cry over spilt milk.

Against five opposition speeches on Monday in the debate opened by Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) senior leader Prof Khurshid Ahmed, none from the formerly ruling Pakistan Muslim League (PML) and its allies came out to respond to some of the strongest remarks against the president that would have brought them to their feet to protest a few months ago when he was still wearing his army uniform.

PML figures like secretary-general Mushahid Hussain Sayed and S.M. Zafar were there, but they maintained silence as did some women Senators known for their ardent support to Musharraf in the past, though they did break into a brief desk-thumping cheer for the law minister’s remark, supported by a couplet, that the opposition’s lament was of no use now when the PCO had been revoked and the suspended Constitution revived with the lifting of the emergency.

Mr Rabbani said it was out of a personal ambition to prolong his power that then Gen Musharraf acted outside the ambit of the Constitution on Nov 3 as chief of the army staff to protect his “flawed” candidacy for another presidential term that he feared would be blocked by a Supreme Court bench hearing challenges to it.

He said if reasons given for the emergency were valid, the president should have straightaway dismissed the PML government of prime minister Shaukat Aziz under the Constitution rather than carry out a “surgical operation of the superior judiciary” as army chief in what he called a final act to have his concept of “unity of command ... prevail over trichotomy of power” after the executive and parliament already had been humbled.

“This is a virtual rape of the Constitution,” he remarked and, amid cheers from opposition benches, said the new parliament would not accept amendments made in the Constitution by Mr Musharraf or indemnify his actions under the PCO. While demanding an immediate release of detained judges, lawyers, and political and civil society activists, he added: “In days to come, with the help of the people of Pakistan, the judiciary shall be restored as it was on Nov 2.”

Prof Khurshid described the emergency period as the “darkest period” of Pakistan’s history for which he said responsibility also lay on former prime minister Shaukat Aziz, provincial governors, vice-chief of the army staff and corps commanders.

He said all those responsible for the alleged illegalities of the emergency period should be given an “exemplary punishment” as had happened with England’s 17th century soldier-statesman Oliver Cromwell, whose body was dug up and hanged after the Restoration.

Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party’s Raza Mohammad Raza accused the president of “reconstructing the Constitution to impose a permanent martial law through a short-sighted coalition” and said even PCO judges would get an “exemplary punishment” for collaborating with the former general.

Prof Mohammad Ibrahim, another MMA Senator, said while detained deposed judges had been restrained from going out for Eid and Friday prayers, “reports are coming that they are not even allowed to sit in their lawns to bask in the sun”.

The joint privilege motion of Mr Rabbani and Prof Khurshid about what they called a continuing breach of their and Senate privilege for the house not being in session for the mandatory 90 working days was opposed by Law Minister Haider on the ground that factors like emergency, the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto and other incidents affecting law and order had stood in the way of calling Senate sessions earlier while the opposition too had failed to requisition the house.

But Mr Rabbani and Prof Khurshid argued that these developments had made it all the more necessary for the government to call Senate sessions but it did not do it because it could not defend its policies.

Acting chairman Mir Jan Mohammad Jamali agreed with the opposition demand and referred the motion to the house Standing Committee on Rules of Procedure and Privileges.