Three days ahead of the 32nd death anniversary of Pakistan’s first directly elected Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the federal government on Friday decided to “revisit” his death sentence by making a reference to the Supreme Court.
Invoking Article 186 of the Constitution, President Asif Ali Zardari signed the reference; seeking the Supreme Court’s opinion on the death sentence by the Lahore High Court which was subsequently upheld by the Apex Court in March 1979. Bhutto was hanged to death on April 4, 1979.
Earlier this week, the federal cabinet had authorised the President to send such a reference to the Supreme Court under Article 186 which states that “if, at any time, the President considers that it is desirable to obtain the opinion of the Supreme Court on any question of law which he considers of public importance, he may refer the question to the Supreme Court for consideration”.
The Pakistan People’s Party has always held that Bhutto’s hanging was a “judicial murder” authored by the then martial ruler Zia-ul Haq. Given that this much-talked about reference – billed as reopening a three-decade-old case -- has been criticized in some quarters as an exercise in futility and a gimmick to divert attention from the omissions and commissions of the PPP-led federal government, Presidential spokesman Farhatullah Babar said the aim was only to set the record straight.
“The PPP had never intended to seek revenge but it wanted to put right a historic wrong and thereby vindicate the position of the founding chairman of the party,” Mr. Babar said, pointing out that a former judge of the Bench of the Supreme Court which upheld the death sentence had subsequently publicly acknowledged that the split verdict was given under pressure of the dictatorship of the time. Also, serious reservations had been expressed by international jurists about the legal propriety of the death sentence awarded to Bhutto for allegedly authorising the murder of a political opponent.
