THE ongoing political deadlock has transformed into a tug-of-war between the two important pillars of the state –parliament and the judiciary – and the crisis is likely to aggravate further in the absence of any flexibility. This became evident as the National Assembly, on Wednesday, once again, affirmed to uphold supremacy of parliament. And in their meeting the same day, leaders of the coalition parties accused the judiciary of interfering in the domains of parliament and the executive, opposed the role of the Supreme Court as ‘Panchayat’ while the cabinet again referred the election fund summary to parliament.
This tug-of-war is unfortunate as the Constitution clearly stipulates powers, authority and responsibility of different organs of the state and there would be no problem if all clauses and provisions of the document are implemented and respected in letter and spirit. The Constitution also gives the judiciary power to interpret the law but some judgements of the courts are being agitated by not just affected politicians and political parties but also a dominant segment of the legal fraternity, considering them as attempts to re-write the Constitution which is the sole prerogative of parliament. This impression must be addressed satisfactorily together with serious reservations about unilateral powers of the Chief Justice of Pakistan to form benches. In the changed scenario, no party except the JUI of Maulana Fazlur Rehman is averse to the dialogue process which is considered to be the only viable way out of the prevailing mess. However, it has also transpired that most of the political parties are not ready to engage into talks under pressure of the judiciary. The coalition partners’ meeting on Wednesday unanimously observed that it was the jurisdiction and role of political parties to create consensus and harmony on political matters, the role they have been playing successfully for years and the same could not be surrendered. Speaker National Assembly Raja Pervez Ashraf has also written a letter to the Chief Justice of Pakistan to convey concerns and sentiments of parliamentarians on some recent decisions of the apex court and comments made by some judges. These concerns need to be addressed amicably as part of the efforts to bring down the boiling temperatures. There are also reports that Chairman Senate Sadiq Sanjrani would form a committee in an effort to evolve a consensus on holding the elections for the provincial legislatures and national assembly simultaneously, an initiative he should have taken much earlier.
