Review sought of Pakistani Supreme Court’s verdict on emergency
By IANSThursday, October 29, 2009
ISLAMABAD - Former Pakistani chief justice Abdul Hameed Dogar has sought a review of a Supreme Court verdict terming as unconstitutional his incumbency during the emergency then president Pervez Musharraf had declared in November 2007. He has also questioned the present chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry’s continuance in office.
“Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry was restored to the present top judicial position through an executive order and (this is), therefore, illegal,” Dawn Thursday quoted Dogar as saying.
According to Dogar, the word “restoration” was alien to the constitution. He also questioned the reinstatement of other Supreme Court judges through an executive order.
Along with his petition seeking a review of the Supreme Court’s July 31 judgement, he also filed a reply to a contempt notice issued to him while the court was hearing a case against the emergency and a challenge to the reinstatement of the chief justice.
Musharraf had sacked Chaudhry and the entire Supreme Court bench when they refused to take a fresh oath under the Provisional Constitutional Order that was promulgated along with the emergency November 3, 2007. Dogar had then been appointed at the head of a new bench. The previous bench was restored in March after a bruising lawyer’s “long march” to Islamabad.
Dogar described the issue of the contempt notice as discriminatory and sought its immediate recall for being against the much talked about comity of judges.
“If taking oath by me is disobedience and the restraining order remained binding and operative, all civil and military authorities and judges who took oath under him but did not act upon the order should also have been issued similar notices,” he maintained.
“One set of judges would issue notices to another group of judges and whenever one group has a majority, they will prosecute and persecute their peers,” Dogar added.
