Published in The News Tuesday, February 09, 2010
Jyoti Malhotra
It doesn’t really matter whether or not the impending talks with Pakistan at the foreign secretaries’ level will be part of a “composite dialogue” or simply a dinner conversation in Hyderabad House – that is, if the conversation is held in Delhi. Or whether the Americans gently persuaded the Indian and Pakistani establishments to climb down from their soaring, antagonistic rhetoric of the past year or so, and break bread with each other.
Few will care whether the impending dialogue will yield a dramatic breakthrough or give way to a modestly-sized initiative with modest ambitions. Even diehard diplomatists with fine-tooth combs are keenly aware that when people start talking and travelling to each other’s countries, they considerably shrivel up the size of the bureaucratic pancake. Continue reading
Comment on the current judicial crisis
by Justice (retd) Fakhruddin G. Ebrahim
We are again faced with a judicial crisis – not a bonafide crisis but a crisis created for ulterior reasons.
Ostensibly the crisis is the elevation of chief justice for the Lahore High Court in the Supreme Court of Pakistan, the elevation of the next senior most judge Justice Saquib Nasir, as acting Chief Justice of Lahroe High Court (a la Zia ul Haq style).
Being of the view that more harm is done by ignoring seniority, which opens the door for exercise of discretion in principle, I am against seniority being ignored, particularly in judiciary.
My first reaction, therefore, was that the appointment of Chief Justice Lahore High Court to the Supreme Court and elevation of the next senior-most judge as Lahore High Court Chief Justice was justified.
I had assumed that in accordance with the Article 177 of the constitution, these appointments were made by the president after consultation with the Chief Justice of Pakistan, and that the president was bound by such consultations.
Was the Chief Justice of Pakistan even consulted? Continue reading →
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Filed under Justice, Law, lawyers movement, Pakistan, Politics
Tagged as Article 177, Chief Justice, comment, Constitution, crisis, Fakhruddin G. Ebrahim, judicial, Lahore High Court, Prime Minister