Grabbing the opportunity to criticise the government in the midst of the tug-of-war between the executive and the judiciary, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leadership has finally declared open war against the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP)-led coalition government for continuously ridiculing the courts and disrespecting its orders in various high-profile cases, with PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif saying his party was ready for action.
Nawaz told a private TV channel that the government had not learned from its mistakes and was repeating them. “The country and democracy will pay the price for the government’s actions in the end,” he said. Nawaz accused the government’s ministers of being
involved in corruption cases and said the PML-N would not sit idly and let things continue as they were. He said the government was mocking parliament and the judiciary.
The PML-N chief asked parliamentarians from the treasury benches to also raise their voice against the government’s actions, adding that it had been given enough opportunities to right itself, but it seemed that it was incapable of doing so. He said the government had not truly accepted the restoration of the judiciary and continued to tussle with the restored judges. Nawaz said Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani had called him last night but they had spoken only about how to use the aid from Britain and about the recently restarted peace talks with India.
SHAHBAZ: Meanwhile, Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif told a press conference in Model Town that having made contempt of court, the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) had unleashed an open war against the judiciary and in response, the PML-N had announced a bigger war against the PPP-led government. “The PML-N is even ready to sacrifice its government in Punjab to restore the courts’ respect, run their system according to the constitution and get their verdicts implemented,” Shahbaz said.
“We will set in motion all options including long march in our struggle to help the judiciary survive with honour,” said Shahbaz, adding that “this war” would be fought in and out of parliament with full throttle and asking all institutions, including the army, to play their due roles. Shahbaz said Nawaz would finally decide the line of action to “fight this battle” in the party meeting to be held after intra-party elections on July 27 in Islamabad.
Terming July 26 “the blackest day”, when the government showed utter defiance to the Supreme Court in corruption cases, Shahbaz said that disrespect to the courts meant a big threat to democracy. He said that court was still going soft on the government to prevent a collapse of the system but the government was taking advantage and flouting its orders.
