Hyderabad/Karachi: Speaking just a day after the Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) said that he felt compelled to intervene in the executive’s affairs due to poor state of governance, Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said on Sunday that the judiciary would do well to focus on its own institutional concerns like disposing of backlog of more than 1.9 million court cases.
He said institutions would be weakened if they keep interfering in each other’s domains, adding that if politicians were failing at their work, the public was vested with the authority, under the constitution, to vote them out. He stressed that it was a right of every Pakistani to participate in the electoral process.
Bilawal said his party had wanted to implement judicial reforms in the country but the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) opposed its efforts.
He said the PML-N’s track record showed that when it was elected into power it had weakened institutions, rather than strengthening them as well as consolidating democracy.
Commenting on Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi’s recent demands that the Senate elections be declared null and void, Bilawal said that the PML-N must look for reasons behind its defeat. He said the ruling party was defeated in the election because of its weak candidates. He called on the prime minister to withdraw his statement regarding the Senate chairman. He was responding to PM Abbasi’s call for the newly-elected chairman of the Upper House to issue a statement swearing that he ‘didn’t buy any senator’ to clinch the coveted slot.
The PPP chairman further said former premier Nawaz Sharif had never been and would never be an ideological leader. The ruling party was desperate for a way out of the Panama Papers issue, he added.
Later in the day, Bilawal met a delegation of Pakistan Business Council (PBC). PPP co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari was also present in the meeting that took place at the Bilawal House.
Chief Minister Sindh Murad Ali Shah, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate Sherry Rehman, Deputy Chairman of the Senate Saleem Mandviwala and Minister for Planning and Development Saeed Ghani were also present.
The PBC delegation was led by Mohammad Ali Tabba and included Towfiq Chinoy, Bashir Ali Mohammad, Ali Habib, Arif Habib and others.
Published in Daily Times, April 2nd 2018.
