The judges are not being restored this week. There will be a lot of “sound and fury, signifying nothing”. All the spin in the world cannot obfuscate the fact that the judges have not been restored within the stipulated 30 days. Obsessed with the gears of power, both Zardari and Sharif missed meeting the president of Iran where some long term Pakistani-Iranian strategies on Afghanistan, Baluchistan and and FATA could be jointly discussed.

There is a huge problem for Pakistanis right now. A looming food crisis is not being addressed by the government, too busy fighting over ministries, seats, and packages for the MNAs.

The much heralded supremacy of the parliament has gone the way of the first PPPP and the first PMLN governments. The entire subject has not been discussed in parliament–rather in the kitchen cabinets of Mr. Sharif and Mr. Zardari—and lest we forget in Dubai.

Shouldn’t these matters be discussed threadbare in Islamabad in the National Assembly of Pakistan? Whither democracy?

Flexible PML-N seeks to save face: Monday, April 28, 2008, By Dilshad Azeem

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz is all set to seek face-saving arrangements with the Pakistan People’s Party on the reinstatement of the judges within the deadline, The News has learnt.
“The PML-N will show more flexibility on the constitutional package if the judges are reinstated within the April 30 deadline, as we need to save face before the people,” a key leader of the Nawaz League told this correspondent here on Sunday.

Apart from the clauses of the proposed constitutional package, the major controversy remains on the PPP’s insistence to bring the package and the resolution on the judges’ restoration simultaneously in the National Assembly, the source maintained.

At the same time, two other coalition partners of the government, the Awami National Party (ANP) and the Jamiat-e-Ulema Islam-Fazl (JUI-F), have not been taken into confidence over the constitutional package or about the exact timing of bringing a resolution to reinstate the judges.
The PPP and PML-N are not in a position to get two-thirds majority either in the National Assembly or the Senate without the ANP and JUI-F’s support. Both these smaller parties have their own demands to be presented before the two leading ones when the constitutional package is presented before them.
“The PML-N will seek some arrangements to de-link the constitutional package from the resolution so that the differences are hammered out separately. Definitely, we are flexible and will be more in case the PPP accepts our major demand of meeting the deadline,” the source further said.
The PPP-PML-N committee working on the package and finalising the draft resolution for the reinstatement of the judges would meet in Dubai with the PPP Co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari today (Monday) in a last ditch effort to fulfill the promise the two major parties had made with the public in last

March 9 Murree Declaration.
Asif Zardari has extended his stay in Dubai and called the committee members there to sort out the differences. “The Nawaz League’s main stress would be to meet the deadline or it would cause serious problems for us as far as the public opinion is concerned.”

Law Minister Farooq H Naek, Leader of the House in Senate Raza Rabbani and Information Minister Sherry Rehman are from the PPP side and Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, Khawaja Asif and Ishaq Dar are the PML-N representatives in the committee.

“The PML-N will back the PPP in fixing the tenure of the judges in the constitutional package in case our demand of April 30 is accepted by Asif Ali Zardari and it is de-linked from the resolution,” the PML-N member further said.

In off-the-record chat, the source admitted that there was still a deadlock mainly on the PPP’s wish to link both the resolution and the package and bring these together. “If we accept their demand for fixing the tenure of the chief justice up to three years, it means he is not reinstated,” he said in a frank manner.

According to information, deposed Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry has to stay till 2013 at his position under the pre-Nov 3, 2007 position. And if a term for three years is restricted, he would retire in the ongoing year.

Both PPP and PML-N, in the Murree Declaration, had announced to restore the judiciary in accordance with their status of November 2, 2007. This means there must not be any fixed tenure for the chief justice.

Judges’ return can be delayed by a month

Saturday, April 26, 2008

By Asim Yasin & Dilshad Azeem

ISLAMABAD: The National Assembly was prorogued on Friday without taking up the much-awaited resolution for the judges’ restoration and, as a result, the chances of meeting the deadline of the Murree Declaration have diminished.

The meeting of the committee on the judges’ restoration has so far failed to agree on a consensus resolution forcing the government to prorogue the session. However, there were reports that if the committee could reach a consensus, the National Assembly session would be summoned by Tuesday or Wednesday to move the resolution.

According to sources, the government may summon the joint session of both the houses of parliament to move the resolution. The sources said the PPP had virtually put the deposed judges’ reinstatement on the backburner with the likelihood of maintaining the status quo for at least a month.

“The National Assembly, which is to restore the judges with the passage of a resolution under the historic Murree Declaration, is not scheduled to meet in the coming month i.e. May, and there is no sign of convening it before the first week of June, 2008,” according to official sources in the NA Secretariat.

Neither was there any formal request on the part of the treasury to continue the session nor there was any move to call it in the coming month though the countdown for the reinstatement of the deposed judges would end on April 30, they added.

According to the schedule of the parliamentary calendar, the National Assembly would now meet on June 2, 2008 for the budget session. “We do not think that any session would be convened before the scheduled session of the assembly,” the officials said.

However, the same sources believe that the government can convene the assembly session if there is an agreement on the judges’ reinstatement. “Again the president will have to sign the summary of summoning the NA session and the presidency can also buy time on one pretext or the other.”

The June 2, 2008 session would be the fifth one of the present National Assembly after the chair prorogued the fourth one yesterday (Friday) in accordance with what the government and the opposition parties had mutually agreed at the platform of the House Business Advisory Committee (HBAC).

The HBAC, headed by the speaker, had finalised the sessions and the number of days of the National Assembly to carry out the legislative agenda and to take up other issues while ensuring that the house would meet, at least, for 130 days, a mandatory requirement.

“The house would have business for 137 days according to the finalised schedule of the parliamentary calendar year, from February to February each year,” the NA Secretariat officials said.

The 4th session commenced and finished right in accordance with the schedule as it started on April 10 and concluded on April 25, 2008. The budget session would start from June 2 and would conclude on July 4, 2008, the longest one in the parliamentary calendar spanning over 33 days.

The sixth session would start by August 4 and would finish on August 9, lasting 29 days of the proceedings. Likewise, the Seventh session would take place after the recession of one month as it would commence on October 19 and end on October 31, 2008.

Similarly, the eighth session would start from December 15 and would conclude on December 26, lasting eleven days. The last session of the parliamentary calendar would end on February 6, 2009 after commencing on January 19.

Print Version

Little chance of meeting deadline
Saturday, April 26, 2008

By Tariq Butt

ISLAMABAD: With the prorogation of the National Assembly session, the commitment of the two main ruling coalition partners to table a resolution in the Lower House seeking the restoration of the deposed judges by their own appointed deadline, April 30, has evaporated into thin air to the annoyance of many.

Thus, the senior ruling partner, the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), or its Co-chairman Asif Zardari to be more specific, has prevailed with a bang. He never accepted any countdown or deadline to reinstate the deposed judges. Rather, he has been pooh-poohing such a talk.

The junior coalition associate, the Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N), is condemned to swallow a lot of embarrassment with the passing of the cut-off date because of the prorogation of the National Assembly session. It will have to avoid whining and whimpering in public for keeping its alliance intact with the PPP. If it publicly nitpicks, the other side has the potential to hit back.

But it is a hard and harsh fact that even before the prorogation of the lower house on Friday, leading PML-N stalwarts had known that it was impossible to stick to the one-month deadline, ending on April 30, as announced in the Murree Declaration, and that the PPP was not at all serious about doing what had been committed in the declaration.

The PML-N has now started learning to work in a coalition when it is not presiding over the alliance like in the past, an apt example being its dominant role in the Islami Jamhoori Ittehad (IJI).

Apparently, since it has realised that keeping the coalition afloat is more important than piercing it straightaway, it feels it is advisable to stomach the PPP’s dithering on bringing back the deposed judges than parting company with it.

It was Nawaz Sharif who had forced the inclusion of the backward counting in the Murree Declaration. He had allowed his MNAs to join the federal cabinet only after Zardari had agreed to the timeline for the restoration of the deposed judges, and the vice versa.

In order to work out a harmonious coalition in which all partners also share the responsibility, besides enjoying official positions, was a serious political compulsion of both sides. The prorogation of the lower house session has also taken the wind out of the sails of those who were yearning to see the resurgence of an independent judiciary in the shape of the return of the sacked justices by the given cut-off date.

Law Minister Farooq H Naek has now admitted that there are serious legal and constitutional complexities on the question of the deposed judges that have to be overcome. At the same time, he said there was no pressure whatsoever on the government not to reinstate the judges.

This is perhaps the first time that Naek has publicly admitted the harsh reality – the presence of complexities. Not only the PML-N but also the lawyers’ community always believed that the restoration of the deposed judges was a simple matter and should not be stretched beyond April 30. They felt that any delay would rather make matters worse, providing other players to show their mettle, to torpedo the return of the judges.