Chief Justice Pakistan

From one point of view, Chief Justice Pakistan (CJP) is helping bring about the rule of law in Pakistan. But that would be viewing very narrowly some recent events only.

Anujan on BRF has this take:

I dont know if anyone is following the great tamasha that is Pakistan. CJP of Pakistan wants reopening of Swiss cases against Zardari saying that the issue of Presidential immunity is not something that has been decided by the courts yet. One might get an idea that this CJP is a eminent impartial Jurist.

Let us examine his record of this gem of a legal mind: He took oath under the PCO promulgated by Mushy, and when 11 judges of Supreme court resigned rather than take oath under the PCO, he was elevated to the Supreme court! The PCO contained the beautiful clause

Quote:

Supreme Court or High Courts and any other court shall not have the powers to make any order against the Chief Executive or any person exercising powers or jurisdiction under his authority

He then sat on a bench which was to decide a legal petition challenging Mushy's Coup and proceeded to dismiss the petition You might wonder what opinion he wrote: "I endorse the coup because I took an oath to endorse the coup?" - You lack imagination: Actually he did one better, he cited legal precedence of quashing Begum Nusrat Bhutto case against Zia's coup !! (which cited legal gems such as pro coup decisions made in Nigeria and Uganda )

Then our man dismissed a petition challenging the LFO (which gave much of the powers to Mushy, including appointing judges to the court, dismissing the PM and power to amend the constitution). The deep judicial insight was that the petitioner was a bad person because his party (watan party) boycotted the elections and hence was undemocratic {I wonder if the court caught the irony here } and furthermore the court refuses to consider the case because it does not relate to public interest or does not impact the fundamental rights or liberties of the people

Then Mushy passed the 17th amendment, amending the constitution, taking all the provisions of the LFO and shoved it up the musharraf of Pakistan's constitution. It was challenged in court. CJP turned up to shower pakistan with more of his legal wisdom. His bench dismissed all petitions with the impeccable argument that since LFO gave the power to Mushy to amend the constitution, he was free to amend the constitution, including incorporating LFO into the constitution thereby now giving him power to constitutionally amend the constitution

Now, Zardari has inherited all the powers which was the illegitimate kid of Mushy F-ing the Paki Constitution. The CJP suddenly thinks President does not even enjoy immunity against prosecution because the SC has not decided about it yet. The interesting thing is that PPP party wallahs gathered and Groper threatened to reopen ZAB's hanging case calling it "Judicial Murder" (please to recall the precedence cited by the CJP in his original judgment legalizing the coup).

It is beer & popcorn time folks!

PS: Wiki

In the wake of the imposition of emergency rule in Pakistan, on November 14, 2007, the Harvard Law School Association decided to award its highest honour, the Medal of Freedom, to Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, following the military crackdown the previous week. He becomes the first Pakistani to be presented with such honour.

Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry formally received the Harvard Law School Medal of Freedom during his visit to the United States in November, 2008.

John Yoo of the torture memos is a Harvard graduate too, so this is in line with the general intellectual decline of Harvard - they wouldn't recognize freedom if it bit them on the ass.