LAHORE, May 12: The Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (F) and the Awami National Party, two components of the ruling Pakistan Democratic Alliance, have termed the PML-N’s decision to quit the cabinet hasty and uncalled for, and Maulana Fazlur Rehman has asked the PML-N leadership to hold talks with the allies before his party ministers submit their resignations to the prime minister on Tuesday.
“We should be given an opportunity to mediate. The resignations at this stage may be harmful for the country,” he said while talking to Dawn on Monday.
He said in the absence of the PML-N, the coalition would be a spiritless entity even if it stayed intact.
The Awami National Party has expressed serious concern over what it calls the PML-N’s hasty decision to quit the PPP-led coalition, and says this party will be held responsible in case any harm is caused to the system.
Party's Information Secretary Zahid Khan, while talking to Dawn, said his party would support the PPP in its efforts to restore the deposed judges through a constitutional amendment as this was the best course to bring the judges back to their jobs and ensure the independence of the judiciary.
The ANP leader said since the country was facing countless problems at present, a broad-based coalition was needed to grapple with them. He said the mandate of the Feb 18 polls reflected that the nation wanted political parties of all shades of opinion to join hands to run the country.
He said it would be premature to say whether some new party’s support would be needed to keep the governing coalition in place.
Abid Hasan Minto, a former president of the Supreme Court Bar, said the PML-N’s decision to quit the federal cabinet would intensify the lawyers' struggle for the restoration of the deposed judges.
He said the PPP-led federal government should restore the judges through a simple resolution.
He said reinstatement of judges through a constitutional amendment would amount to recognizing the validity of all steps taken on Nov 3 and negating the essence of the lawyers' struggle and the spirit of the Murree Declaration.
Minto was confident that President Musharraf would have to quit and deposed judges come back.
The former SCBA chief said the lawyers had boycotted the general elections because of their principled stand against the Nov 3 steps taken by President Musharraf in his capacity as army chief.
He said there was no shift in that stand and the lawyers
still held those steps unconstitutional.
In his opinion, the PPP-led coalition should have adopted a resolution for the restoration of the judges on the very first sitting of the National Assembly.
The delay, he said, had provided various vested interests with an opportunity to play their role and make the situation more complex.
Mr Minto said the de facto courts should not oppose or block any resolution for the implementation of the Murree Declaration.
Lawyers, he said, were not tired of the struggle they have been continuing for more than one year.
He opposed the plan to reinstate the deposed judges through a constitutional amendment. Such a course, he said, would mean that the ruling coalition had accepted that whatever steps had been taken by President Musharraf
on Nov 3 were valid and constitutional.
Acceptance of the Nov 3 steps would take the lawyers’ struggle back to square one and negate the mandate of the Feb 18 elections.
He recalled that when the MNAs-elect had taken oath, they had made it clear that they were swearing allegiance to the 1973 Constitution, of which the Nov 3 steps were not a part.