Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry said on Wednesday that the court would not go beyond the parameters of Article 186 of the constitution and give its opinion only on the questions raised in the presidential reference to revisit the death sentence of former prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.
Article 186 (Advisory Jurisdiction) reads: “If, at any time, the President considers that it is desirable to obtain the opinion of the Supreme Court on any question of law which he considers of public importance, he may refer the question to the Supreme Court for consideration and the Supreme Court shall consider a question so referred and report its opinion on the question to the President.” The CJP said since it was a case of a globally acknowledged personality, the court would not give its opinion in haste.
Starting his arguments, Attorney General Maulvi Anwarul Haq stated that undue haste was shown in hanging Bhutto, as usually after a death warrant was issued, the convict was executed within a period of seven to 21 days, but Bhutto was hanged much sooner than that. He said the Lahore High Court (LHC) had performed the function of a trial court, which was illegal as the Supreme Court had ruled that the high court was an appellate court, thus it could not perform the function of a trial court.
To a court query, he said the court was bound only to answer the questions raised in the reference. The court later adjourned further hearing for an indefinite period, holding that the case would be fixed on availability of the bench and amicus curiae.
SM ZAFAR SUGGESTS: SM Zafar, an amicus curiae, meanwhile submitted that the court should make a very strong suggestion to the government and draw the attention of parliament to frame a law to provide for correction of final judgements in criminal cases as and when it found that real miscarriage of justice had taken place, including in the case of Bhutto.
