Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari on Tuesday made clear that the ruling coalition will ensure the passage of a constitutional amendment to form a constitutional court regardless of any and all opposition to the move.
Addressing lawyers at the Sindh High Court Bar Association, he reiterated that the PPP-led government was forced to introduce the 19th Amendment under duress after being threatened by the Supreme Court. “The judicial reforms would be undertaken in line with the Charter of Democracy come what may,” he emphasized.
The incumbent government is striving to evolve consensus on a raft of constitutional amendments aimed at reforming the judiciary, including by forming a new constitutional court and increasing the retirement age of government employees. However, its previous efforts to pass the constitutional package were stymied due to insufficient numbers, triggering efforts to secure support both in and out of Parliament.
Recalling that the 18th Amendment had replaced the judges’ appointment procedure with a globally recognized, he noted that Parliament decided on the appointment of judges even in the U.S. “This that is why martial law is never imposed in the U.S.,” he claimed. Stressing that he respected both the incumbent chief justice and the senior puisne judge, he noted they were both part of the bench that had declared PPP founder Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s death sentence illegal. By establishing a constitutional court, he said, no other prime minister could be executed and justice would be served to the people. He also slammed the impression of the superior judiciary “rewriting” the Constitution, stressing this cannot continue.
Slamming the country’s history of military rule, he recalled that his mother, the late Benazir Bhutto, had witnessed the brutalities inflicted during the tenure of dictator Ziaul Haq. “Shaheed Benazir knew that our system was broken. At that time, [then-chief justice] Iftikhar Chaudhry was not a revolutionary but a PCO judge,” he said, adding nor was there any “dam-wala judge”—a euphemism for ex-CJP Saqib Nisar who had made fundraising for construction of dams a central plank of his tenure as head of the apex court.
During his address, Bhutto-Zardari also fielded questions from the legal fraternity regarding the proposed constitutional amendments and assured them that the constitutional court would include the representation of all provinces, with the position of chief justice rotating between them.