The war of wits and nerves between the executive and the judiciary in Pakistan reached a shrill pitch over the past 24 hours as the Supreme Court in a midnight decision took suo motu notice of an alleged bid by the government to dismiss the higher judiciary.
Though Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani himself stepped in to quell the rumours by issuing a statement close to midnight on Thursday, stating that the speculation was baseless, the Supreme Court on Friday sought a signed explanation from the him while observing that toppling the judiciary would be a subversion of the Constitution and, therefore, an act of high treason.
The 17-member bench gave Attorney-General Anwar ul-Haq time till Monday to furnish the written statement. Later, addressing the media in the evening, Federal Law Minister Babar Awan said the Prime Minister would address the nation on Sunday to clear the air.
The drama began to unfold late on Thursday night after a couple of television channels reported that the government was considering to withdraw the March 16, 2009, notification to restore the Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) and the entire superior judiciary at the apex court level and in the High Courts.
This prompted CJP Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry to convene a late night meeting of all the Supreme Court judges after which it was decided that a 17-member bench would look into the reports of a move to remove the higher judiciary. The hearing was posted for early Friday morning and notice was issued to the Attorney-General past midnight by which time the Prime Minister had issued a statement describing the reports as baseless.
The statement issued by the Prime Minister's Office said: “Certain elements are trying to create bad taste among the institutions but these conspiracies will fail. We respect judiciary. The government will take every possible step for strengthening of institutions. Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) leadership has scarified their lives for the independence of judiciary.''
With the removal of the CJP and higher court judges by the former President, Pervez Musharraf, in November 2007 triggering the political turmoil that ultimately led to his ouster, reports of a similar bid by the current dispensation again raised the spectre of an encore; more so because of the uneasy relationship between the apex court and the executive, particularly President Asif Ali Zardari.
