LAHORE, April 11: Punjab Advocate-General Syed Shabbar Raza Rizvi claimed on Friday that President Gen Pervez Musharraf had lost his authority to amend the 1973 Constitution with the election of parliament.

Talking to newsmen in his office, the AG seconded the recent judgment of the Lahore High Court that the LFO should be presented before the parliament for a decision about its ultimate fate and that courts did not have the jurisdiction to review it.

He was of the view that in the Zafar Ali Shah Case, the Supreme Court had authorized Gen Musharraf to amend the Constitution within a three-year timeframe. However, he added, the LHC had rightly pointed out that this authority was now a prerogative of the parliament.

The LFO, like the Revival Order of the Constitution 1985, had now become part of the Constitution and could only be amended by a two-thirds majority of the parliament, the AG said, adding that any parliamentarian could move a bill for abrogation of the LFO, and the parliament could proceed with it in accordance with the procedure mentioned in the Constitution.

According to the AG, President Musharraf never crossed the parameters laid down by the SC in Zafar Ali Shah case while exercising his authority to amend the Constitution, and promulgated the LFO in line with those parameters. Not a single provision of the LFO is in conflict with the parameters laid down by the SC, the AG claimed.

He disclosed that the provincial chief minister had approved a grant of Rs0.8 million for the AG office.

Meanwhile, the provincial government appointed Akhtar Hussain Qureshi and Tahir Gondal as assistant advocates-general for Lahore and Tanveer Iqbal for LHC’s Rawalpindi bench.