Haqqani asks SC to recall order, dismiss Nawaz’s petition

In response to Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) President Nawaz Sharif’s petition seeking a probe into the memogate controversy, Pakistan’s former ambassador to the US Husain Haqqani, who is a main respondent in Sharif’s plea, filed a concise statement in the Supreme Court on Friday raising preliminary objections to the plea and seeking a recall of the court’s December 1 short order in the case, but the apex court’s Registrar Office rejected the application. The application contended that an adverse order was passed by the court on December 1 without giving an opportunity to Haqqani of being heard, which had resulted in serious infringement of the constitutionally guaranteed fundamental rights of the respondent under Articles 4, 9, 10-A, 15, 18 and 25 of the constitution.
He said the court placed him on the Exit Control Lost despite the fact that the petitioner did not seek any such action. Rejecting the application, the Registrar Office noted that any order of the apex court could not be recalled, however a plea for review of the order could be filed. The office asked the applicant to file a proper review petition against the order if he had any objections to it. In his application, filed through his counsel Asma Jahangir, Haqqani had said that in the interest of justice, the December 1 order may be recalled to enforce his fundamental rights, and requested the court to dismiss Sharif’s plea because it was beyond the scope of Article 184(3) of the constitution, which mandates the apex court to only take up matters of public importance requiring enforcement of fundamental rights. The application stated that Sharif’s plea did not disclose any infringement of any fundamental rights by Haqqani as enumerated in Part 1, Chapter 2 of the constitution, nor had it sought any relief in terms of enforcing any of the fundamental rights, thus on this ground too, it deserved to be dismissed. He stated that the petitioner had all the opportunity to invoke the apex court for the enforcement of fundamental rights being violated every day, including in terms of national security, however he did not do so until now, which proved that the petitioner was biased against the respondent. It said the petition was not maintainable and liable to be dismissed as it involved a controversy where there was a lack of judicially discoverable and manageable standards to resolve the controversy raised in the petition. It stated that the issues raised in Sharif’s petition were primarily political in nature and jurisdiction of the courts was barred under the Political Question Doctrine. Through the statement, Haqqani categorically denied any connection to the controversial memo. His statement said the Blackberry Messenger conversations reproduced with the petition did not in any way refer to the alleged memo and the record of these conversations annexed with the petition was not a transcript of any oral conversation, rather it was an alleged exchange of Blackberry Messages. The statement said the name of Haqqani was never mentioned in the article written by Mansoor Ijaz in the Financial Times on October 10, 2011. However the name of President Asif Ali Zardari was mentioned in the article. It said a legal team was thus sought on behalf of President Zardari from a reputed US law firm, which advised that in case of defamation proceedings, the matters relating to the working of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) might come up for discussion in the US or the UK courts as the ISI was central to the subject matter of the article in question. Thus the matter was not proceeded against in foreign courts purely out of national interest and with the sole intention of avoiding any adverse media attention, which would tarnish the image of the country, said Haqqani’s statement.