PTI founder Imran Khan complained to Chief Justice of Pakistan Qazi Faez Isa on Thursday about the challenges he faced in obtaining legal assistance for the NAB law amendments case as the two interacted for the first time in the courtroom.
Incarcerated at Adiala Jail, Imran attended the hearing via video link. Imran informed the CJP, “The jail authorities do not allow me to meet my legal team. I am being kept in solitary confinement without access to any materials or a library to prepare for the case.”
Imran’s remarks came as a five-judge bench of the Supreme Court led by CJP Isa, and including Justice Aminuddin Khan, Justice Jamal Khan Mandokhail, Justice Athar Minallah, and Justice Syed Hasan Azhar Rizvi, resumed hearing the accountability laws amendment case.
At the outset of the hearing, the apex court rejected the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa government’s petition seeking the hearing to be broadcast live.
The federal government challenged the apex court’s majority verdict in September last year, declaring amendments to the National Accountability Ordinance-2002 illegal. The proceedings held on May 14 were telecast live. However, the last one as well as Thursday’s was not. Both of them had the ex-premier in attending the hearing via video link.
Justice Minallah dissented from the majority 4-1 decision and said that it is a matter of public interest and therefore should be live-streamed. The chief justice said the court has never received such a plea before and all judges deliberated on the petition before a decision was reached.
At the outset of the hearing, Justice Minallah said the hearing should be broadcast in the same manner earlier hearings were. However, the chief justice said the case is “technical” in nature and is not a matter of public interest.
“The last hearing was not broadcast live and neither will we broadcast today,” added Justice Isa.
Following these remarks, the bench took a recess to deliberate if the hearing should be broadcast live.
The hearing resumed after a break of almost an hour with the court announcing its verdict on the K-P petition.
