ISLAMABAD: Chief Justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry said on Thursday that the country was passing through a complicated era of its history as corruption had paralyzed its economic development.
Addressing a full court reference in honour of outgoing Supreme Court Judge Justice Tariq Pervez, the CJ said: “ Kidnapping for ransom, nepotism, forced disappearances, targeted killings, corruption and power crisis have paralyzed economic development”.
He said the judiciary was not meant to oppose other two pillars of the state (legislature and administration) instead it was supposed to check misuse of authority by the state institutions.
The chief justice sad judiciary was working independently and there was no such example in Pakistan’s history.
He reiterated that there was a dire need to fill the vacant posts in the Supreme Court, adding that absence of Judicial Commission members from its meeting affects ability to appointment of judges.
Mr Chaudhry said the Attorney General and provincial and federal ministers were absent from the last JC meeting.
Speaking on the occasion, Attorney General Irfan Qadir said SC orders of July 31,2009, created gulf between the bar and the bench and efforts were needed to unite them again.
Let us revisit the distant
past for a moment. Five years or so ago, the honorable judiciary was trying to
reinvent itself by defying a dictator and his dictates. The underlying premise
was that a dictator wielded undue influence and exercised unlimited and
unquestioned powers. The concept in theory was fairly novel and praiseworthy.
Very respectfully, I saw it quite differently. The overly chastised dictator
was found to be a ‘dictator’ after approximately seven years of his rule…why
that was so is my question. Do you see as I see a ‘disconnect’ here? All was
well until the dictator exercised his constitutional power to question one of
the respected members of the judiciary. By the way, the same honorable
judiciary awarded the so-called dictatorial power to him.
What else were you expecting from Pakistani Judiciary ?