A judicial crisis loomed in Pakistan yesterday after the Supreme Court blocked an order from unpopular President Asif Ali Zardari appointing two judges.
The dispute between the Supreme Court and the president is likely to become a distraction for a government struggling to fight Islamist militants and to get a sluggish economy on track.
A confrontation between the Supreme Court and former president Pervez Musharraf blew up in 2007 and undermined the authority of Musharraf, who stepped down months after his allies were defeated in a February 2008 general election.
The latest confrontation has been brewing for some weeks over appointments to the Supreme Court and provincial high courts.
Zardari on Saturday issued an order appointing two judges, Khawaja Sharif and Saqib Nisar, as judges of the Supreme Court and chief justice of the high court in Lahore respectively.
But hours later the Supreme Court blocked the appointments.
A Supreme Court panel said the president’s appointment order had been suspended because Zardari had apparently violated the Constitution by not consulting Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry.
The Dawn newspaper said in an editorial the country was facing a “highly arcane and technical dispute over constitutional prerogatives between the executive and the head of the superior judiciary.”
“[The dispute] nevertheless carries the potential for having seriously destabilizing effects on the polity,” the paper said yesterday.
“Historically, clashes between these two institutions have led to disastrous consequences for democracy and constitutional continuity,” it said.
The row occurred two months after the Supreme Court threw out an amnesty that had protected Zardari, several top aides and thousands of political activists and civil servants, mostly from corruption charges.
The end of the amnesty sparked a political storm and raised questions about Zardari’s future, even though he is protected from any prosecution by presidential immunity.
The Supreme Court, in blocking Zardari’s appointments late on Saturday, said according to the Constitution, the president should make Supreme Court appointments after consultation with the chief justice.
Zardari’s spokesman, Farhatullah Babar said the chief justice had been consulted.
The court said a hearing into the case would be on Thursday.
Another danger for Zardari is that opposition leader Nawaz Sharif, who has been largely supportive of Zardari and his government, could make a stand against the government on the issue.
Sharif’s party criticized Zardari’s decision to make the appointments and Sharif was due to meet top party colleagues later yesterday.
MINERAL DEPOSITS: The Pacific nation is looking for new foreign partners after its agreement with Canada’s Metals Co was terminated ‘mutually’ at the end of last year Pacific nation Kiribati says it is exploring a deep-sea mining partnership with China, dangling access to a vast patch of Pacific Ocean harboring coveted metals and minerals. Beijing has been ramping up efforts to court Pacific nations sitting on lucrative seafloor deposits of cobalt, nickel and copper — recently inking a cooperation deal with Cook Islands. Kiribati opened discussions with Chinese Ambassador Zhou Limin (周立民) after a longstanding agreement with leading deep-sea mining outfit The Metals Co fell through. “The talk provides an exciting opportunity to explore potential collaboration for the sustainable exploration of the deep-ocean resources in Kiribati,” the government said
The head of Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence agency, was sacked yesterday, days after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he no longer trusts him, and fallout from a report on the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack. “The Government unanimously approved Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposal to end ISA Director Ronen Bar’s term of office,” a statement said. He is to leave his post when his successor is appointed by April 10 at the latest, the statement said. Netanyahu on Sunday cited an “ongoing lack of trust” as the reason for moving to dismiss Bar, who joined the agency in 1993. Bar, meant to
Indonesia’s parliament yesterday amended a law to allow members of the military to hold more government roles, despite criticisms that it would expand the armed forces’ role in civilian affairs. The revision to the armed forces law, pushed mainly by Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto’s coalition, was aimed at expanding the military’s role beyond defense in a country long influenced by its armed forces. The amendment has sparked fears of a return to the era of former Indonesian president Suharto, who ex-general Prabowo once served and who used military figures to crack down on dissent. “Now it’s the time for us to ask the
The central Dutch city of Utrecht has installed a “fish doorbell” on a river lock that lets viewers of an online livestream alert authorities to fish being held up as they make their springtime migration to shallow spawning grounds. The idea is simple: An underwater camera at Utrecht’s Weerdsluis lock sends live footage to a Web site. When somebody watching the site sees a fish, they can click a button that sends a screenshot to organizers. When they see enough fish, they alert a water worker who opens the lock to let the fish swim through. Now in its fifth year, the
RSS