SC, Opp should show restraint: Aitzaz

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Eminent lawyer, Aitzaz Ahsan has urged the SC to take a lenient view in NRO implementation case.
While talking to a private TV channel after an event at the Carnegie Institute in Washington, DC on Wednesday, Aitzaz said that the opposition parties in Pakistan were dragging every matter to the Supreme Court (SC) unnecessarily and the urgent relief granted to them was creating an impression within the PPP circles that they were being hard done by.
On the recent proceedings of the NRO implementation case, in which the PM was given time till August 8th to write a letter to Swiss authorities, he said “I have been asking the Supreme Court since January to take a lenient position. This is not an issue of corruption, but of the appropriate forum. How can the elected President of Pakistan as per the constitution, be it Asif Zardari or anybody else, be tried in any other country’s court? There has been no such instance anywhere in the world during the last 500 years or so”. When his attention was drawn to the relatively softer tone of the judges in the proceedings on Wednesday, he said that he had been arguing in the SC for a softer stance and urging them to look at other options. “If they are looking at such options now, that’s good even if it has taken so long to realise what I have been saying. Yousaf Raza Gilani had to go home, but if the new Prime Minister (Raja Pervez Ashraf) can get some relief, it is still good,” he remarked. When asked if the SC were not to change its stance vis-à-vis letter to Swiss authorities, he said this would not change the position of government. “I have been submitting before the Court even earlier that there will be a line of prime ministers coming in and going out one after the other but nobody will write a letter to Swiss courts. And if any PM will openly say that I won’t write a letter because I’ ll not let our president to appear before a Swiss magistrate in a humiliating manner, then what we’ll do.” “The sixth option that I urged the SC to consider was their own, which related to sending this matter to the parliament or to leave this matter to the judgment of the people in the next election,” Aitzaz said while mentioning the six options that have been a subject of debate ever since the NRO implementation case started.
On the CJP’s comment that “parliament had no absolute power,” he termed it justified to a certain extent. “It is true that parliament is not an absolute power, but that is not entirely true. Parliament is the creator of the constitution and is supreme by a two-third majority under article 239 of the constitution. It can change the constitution with a two-third majority and there is no basic structure in Pakistan’s legal framework and constitution that it cannot change,” he explained. “This was also the premises of the judgment in Zafar Ali Shah case in which the chief justice was himself part of the bench. I also agree with the CJ that parliament is not supreme only with a simple majority,” Aitzaz said while going on to explain both scenarios.

3 COMMENTS

  1. Aitzaz's argument is valid. History will judge him much taller than the present SC. CJ must learn from him.

    • aitzaz has lost any respect he may have had in the past by making it so obvious that he has sold out. Like all other jiayalas he would sell his own mother to be in a position of power. What a scum bag.

  2. Aitzaz has no principles or morals. He is starting to show his true jiayala side. If laws are made to be broken then why make them? Why incur ridiculous expenses on law makers who cannot even spell constitution. If we can only cut every jiayal's nuts off and keep them from breeding like rabbits, we can make Pakistan a much better place.

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