ISLAMABAD: The challenge to amendments to the accountability law by
former prime minister Imran Khan “is not a case that deserves to be
answered”, the government’s lawyer told the Supreme Court on Tuesday, and argued that the courts should find reasons to
reconcile the law with the Constitution instead of just striking it down.
A three-member Supreme Court bench,
led by Chief Justice Umar Ata Ban dial, took up the petition filed by the
PTI chairman against the amendments introduced by the current government last year.
Senior counsel Makhdoom Ali Khan, representing the federal government, began his argument during a Tuesday hearing. “If I may be more courageous enough to say, there is no case to answer,” he argued.
He said that when the courts looked at a statute whose constitutionality
and if there was any disconnect, reconcile it with the Constitution instead of just striking it down.
the court shifted the entire burden on the petitioner to
justify that the law or any amendment was unconstitutional and illegal.
Under Article 203(D) of the Constitution, it is only the Federal Shariat Court that,
according to the counsel, could declare any statute repugnant to the injunctions of Islam
after examining the same, but this power of declaw.
The judiciary didn’t have any judicial power in this respect, the counsel said,
During the hearing, Justice Bandial wondered how many members of the parliament passed the present amendments to the NAB law. To this, the counsel stated that he would inform the court about the exact number on Wednesday (today).
When the counsel compared the oath of office of the parliamentarians with the judges,
Justice Ijaza Ahsan reminded that the oath of the member demand
to exercise his functions in accordance with the Constitution but also in the interest of the sovereignty, integrity, solidarity,
well-being and prosperity of Pakistan.
will it not violate the oath,” Justice Ahsan wondered.
Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah, however, observed that the absence of words
in the oath of the judges, like the well-being and prosperity of the people,
was because when the court decided a case,
it did not consider the prosperity of the people rather decided in accordance with the constitution.
Justice Bandial observed that the court interpreted the law in a way that
it should not serve the private interest by overriding the interest of the people.
However, the counsel emphasized that the courts interfered only when the parliament or the executive had crossed red lines,
“but when there is an amber light, the judiciary looks the other way