Pakistan Views

Chief Justice, Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar to convene Full Court meeting of the Supreme Court here on Tuesday. According to Supreme Court sources, the Chief Justice will preside over the Full Court meeting to be attended by all the fifteen judges of the Supreme Court. The meeting will be held in the conference room of the apex court after the court time. Meanwhile, the leader of lawyers’ movement threatened nation-wide protests if the Supreme Court sides with President Pervez Musharraf today by stalling the new parliament’s plan to reinstate judges he fired. “The court is not competent to interfere in parliament’s proceedings,” Aitzaz Ahsan, a lawyer and former cabinet minister, told a news conference late on Monday. “This would be a negation of the democratic process,” he said on the eve of a session of the Supreme Court, believed to have been hastily called to put a stay order on parliament to prevent it passing a resolution to bring back the old judges. Musharraf used emergency powers in November to purge the Supreme Court of judges he feared would rule his re-election unconstitutional. Aitzaz Ahsan, the President of the Supreme Court Bar Association, was also put under house arrest, but was released on March 2. Ahsan said he anticipated the Supreme Court would place a stay order on parliament preventing it from passing a resolution to bring about the reinstatement of the old judges, as the victors of the February 18 election pledged to do this month.
Lawyers will boycott the courts the next day and begin a campaign of peaceful protests if the Supreme Court tries to block parliament, Ahsan said. The new judges are also expected to say that a two-thirds majority would be needed in parliament to restore the old judges, but Ahsan said parliament should ignore the court.There has been speculation that Chaudhry would go straight to the Supreme Court to reclaim his position, but Ahsan said that would not happen during the 30-day period. “Even on release the chief justice will not proceed to the Supreme Court, as long as the countdown continues,” Ahsan said.