LAHORE, April 10: The Lahore High Court on Thursday dismissed an intra-court appeal against the Legal Framework Order (LFO), and ruled that only the parliament had the jurisdiction to review the LFO.
In its judgment, the division bench, comprising Justice Tassaduq Hussain Jilani and Raja Mohammad Sabir, ruled that a close scrutiny of Pakistani courts’ judgments on constitutional issues had led it to conclude that matters similar in nature to the LFO had always been left to the discretion of parliament.
According to Article 189 of the Constitution, any decision of the Supreme Court shall be binding on all other courts in Pakistan to the extent of deciding a question of law or enunciating a principle of law, the LHC observed.
The judgment was based on precedents set by the SC in cases of Asma Jilani, Nusrat Bhutto, Zafar Ali Shah, Mahmood Khan Achakzai and Qazi Hussain Ahmad.
The court cannot strike down the LFO, as none of the political parties currently represented in the Parliament has challenged it in the court. All parties are rather engaged in trying to evolve a consensus on the issue, the court maintained.
According to the court, the parliament had accepted the Revival of Constitution Order 1985 with certain modifications that were reflected in the Eighth Amendment to the 1973 Constitution, and the SC did not declare the amendment as supra-constitutional when it became part of the Constitution.
The bench ruled that the petitioner, A.K. Dogar, had conceded that the former chief executive had the power to amend the 1973 constitution within the parameters laid down by the SC in the Zafar Ali Shah case.
“Those who put their hopes in constitutions, laws or courts are mistaken. Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women and when it dies, no constitution, no law and no court can do much to help it,” the bench quoted Gerald Gunther, the US judge of the Court of Appeal as saying.
While touching upon the LFO provision regarding a three-year increase in the superannuation age of superior court judges, the court observed that the petitioner had not specifically challenged this provision.
When asked whether he would like this issue to be decided by the parliament since it concerned all judges of the superior judiciary in the country, the petitioner had replied in the negative. He continued his arguments on the next day without pressing with his earlier argument that the judges had become judges of their own cause after accepting the extension, the court noted.
The court ruled that the SC had declared Article 58(2-b), which was re-introduced by the LFO after being struck down by the Thirteenth Amendment, as a beneficial provision with the observation that this Article provided checks and balances between powers of the president and the prime minister and helped forestall martial law.
The court refused to grant extra time to the petitioner for making further arguments after the Friday prayers.