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Khairi submits 8-point formulations to Supreme Court

RECORDER REPORT

ISLAMABAD: The next petitioner before the Supreme Court on the validity of Provisional Constitutional Order (PCO), Mohammad Habib Al-Wahab Al-Khairi of Al-Jehad Trust has given his eight-point formulations to the Supreme Court on which he is to raise a discussion.

He will be the third to take the lectern, but not against the PCO. His petition seeks the restoration of the 1973 Constitution, being held in abeyance by the current administration, but only to the extent it relates to the autonomy of the judicature.

Khairi submitted a list of his formulations to the Full Court of 12 judges before they rose for the day on Wednesday, and said he would speak on those when they return to the hearing on Friday morning.

The counsel, a former journalist, has spent his whole career in public interest litigation and has obtained some landmark judgements like the Judges Case, laying down the procedure for the appointments to the superior judiciary, civic rights for the people of Northern Areas, and a host of others.

In a brief appearance after Khalid Anwer, who spoke for the PML, ceded the stage to him, Khairi said he wanted to discuss if a success by 13/14 percent of votes meant a "heavy mandate" and whether it gave dictatorial powers to one person, and whether that person could summarily remove appointees to the constitutional offices.

Other points, he would be raising are: The Constitutional remedies to resolve situations abnormal situations such as prevailing now; whether the actions taken on October 12, 1999 were inevitable; if obedience to un-constitutional and extra-legal orders was binding; the process for accountability in the armed forces; the laws that have to prevail during the suspension of the Constitution and the status of the laws originating from the Holy Quran and Sunnah; Constitutional reforms that had become necessary and whether the attacks on the persons of the Judges and judiciary in the legislatures gave immunity to contemners or invited their disqualification and if the "conscience of the judges" could be debated at public forums.