Negotiations with the government would only take place on one condition: “Return our mandate”
ISLAMABAD:
The opposition alliance warned the government on Wednesday that it would “make their lives miserable” and wrote to all foreign ambassadors urging them to suspend any deals with the ruling powers.
Speaking to the media alongside opponents, Mehmood Khan Achakzai, leader of the opposition alliance Tehreek Tahafuz Ayeen-e-Pakistan (TTAP), announced that the movement would begin on Friday.
“We will protest and we will not throw a single stone,” he said, stressing that their struggle would remain peaceful.
Achakzai said the alliance would contact envoys from all countries and write letters to them, asking them “to end all agreements made with this government.”
Citing a United Nations report, he said 45 percent of Pakistan’s population lives below the poverty line.
“Would the sky have fallen if the session had been postponed?”
He accused world powers of trying to “pit Pakistanis against each other” and warned that “we must stop the path to war.”
Achakzai reiterated that “the Constitution of Pakistan will be supreme, Parliament will remain the source of power and each province will have the first right to its own minerals.”
He said the alliance was ready for dialogue, saying: “We are ready to negotiate, but we will make your life miserable. We appeal to the judges of the judiciary: you can end all this with a single stroke of the pen.”
He added that negotiations with the government would only take place on one condition: “Return our mandate.”
Meanwhile, lawyer Gohar Ali Khan, president of PTI, accused the government of clipping the wings of the judiciary through the 27th constitutional amendment, saying “the powers of the Supreme Court and the Chief Justice have been reduced and the post of Chief Justice of Pakistan has been abolished.”
“We will restore the post of Chief Justice of Pakistan,” he promised, adding that the opposition would also reclaim the “identity and authority of the judiciary.”
He said the new legislation represented a “massive erosion of judicial powers”, adding that while “judicial reforms are necessary, the treatment of judges is unacceptable”.
Barrister Gohar said that during the parliamentary debate, he had highlighted how “the post of chief justice had effectively been abolished”. The recent amendments, he argued, “violate the spirit of the Constitution,” adding that “new clauses have been inserted into the constitutional definitions to restrict the role of the Chief Justice.”
He said that by rushing through the amendments, the government had “sank the ship of democracy and judicial independence”.
“They introduced another amendment that we are only seeing for the first time,” Gohar said.
“In Section 260, there are definitions for everything. There is a definition for the Chief Justice in Section 260(A), but they added a paragraph AB.”
He read out the amendment of the Bill to Section 56, which states: “After the definition of Chief Justice, as amended above, the following new definition shall be inserted, namely: “Chief Justice of Pakistan” means the senior most among the Chief Justice of the Federal Constitutional Court and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
Gohar said this means that as per Article 176, CJP Yahya Afridi will remain in his post for as long as he holds the position.
“He was sworn in on October 26, 2024 and it is a three-year term,” the PTI president explained, adding that the CJP’s term would expire on October 26, 2027.
“Paragraph AB of Article 260 stipulates that the Chief Justice of the Federal Constitutional Court will become CJP after ceasing office.”
“They are playing musical chairs with the Supreme Court: there will be one CJP for three years, then there will be another for another three years,” Gohar said.
“If you wanted to appoint a CJP, you could have just appointed someone from the Supreme Court. You could do it ceremonially, so that the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court would also be known as the Chief Justice of Pakistan.”
“By rushing these amendments, you have sunk the ship of democracy and judicial independence and you have given nothing to the people,” he added.
“However, I hope we can reverse this situation as soon as we get a majority in Parliament and free judges. Decisions are made in the House, but not for personal gain.”
