ISLAMABAD: State Minister for Interior Affairs Tallal Chaudhry on Wednesday said that the parliament should not be turned into a municipal committee and urged that the entire system needs to be scrutinised.
Speaking to the media outside an accountability court in the federal capital, where a corruption reference against PML-N supremo Nawaz Sharif was being heard, Chaudhry said it is yet to be seen if the parliament is receiving its due respect and rights.
The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) had filed three interim corruption references against the Sharif family in September last year in light of the Supreme Court’s July 28 verdict in the Panama Papers case. The bureau recently filed supplementary references in all three cases as well.
It is pertinent to mention here that Senate Chairman Raza Rabbani and Senator Farhatullah Babar on Tuesday stated that they do not want ‘any further rift between institutions or departments working through or under the Constitution’, in an apparent reference to parliament-judiciary standoff that has taken the country’s political scene into its grip for the past few weeks.
The two while delivering their farewell speeches in the upper house of the parliament said that it is unfortunate that the supremacy of the parliament was facing an end in Pakistan. They insisted that the judiciary and parliament should avoid ‘entering into controversy’.
Tallal Chaudhry said that his party, the Pakistan Muslim League – Nawaz (PML-N), wants more respect for the institutions.
The minister said that many voices are being raised [against injustice] and the beauty of the democratic system is its flexibility for corrections and improvement.
Chaudhry refused to comment on a contempt of court case against him in the Supreme Court, the hearing of which was conducted a day before.