LAHORE, March 27: The Pakistan Lawyers Forum (PLF) said on Thursday the Supreme Court's validation of the Nov 3 emergency raised legal complications and that the parliament should pay attention to the issue.
Talking to reporters here, PLF President AK Dogar said the Supreme Court had held in the Tikka Iqbal Khan case that extra constitutional steps of Nov 3, 2007 "are declared to have been validly made". "The above judgment can be rendered ineffective only by changing its basis by a legislative enactment i.e. through an act of the parliament by a simple majority," he added. His view is one of the views by jurists on the restoration of the judges deposed on Nov 3. Among the jurists, a division exists on the modality of restoration of the judges removed from their offices through the Provisional Constitution Order (PCO) by President Pervez Musharraf when he was chief of the army staff too.
A group of lawyers believes that an executive order is sufficient to reinstate the judges for they were removed through an order General Musharraf was not authorised of. The passage of the resolution for this purpose, they feel, is a moral and political authority to work as auxiliary to the executive order by the new government.
The lawyers also raise question to the validation of the PCO by a bench of the SC which had judges who had taken oath under the PCO.
Mr Dogar says the army chief's order has been validated by the court and not by the parliament therefore the parliament, in view of a decision of the Indian SC on the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal (1992), can change basis of a judicial verdict. He said the decision of the Indian SC was based on a 1975 judgment in which the parliament validated the election of Indira Gandhi that was earlier invalidated by the SC, by changing the definition of 'corrupt practices' as used by the court.
The view, he says, was also taken by the Supreme Court of Pakistan in the Molesses Trading Export Private Limited case of 1993. Mr Dogar says the parliament speaks through constitutional amendments with a 2/3rds majority or an act with a simple majority.
In his view a resolution cannot be enforced through the court of law nor can it wash out the legal effect of a judgment of the SC.