ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan has Tuesday summoned an emergency meeting at Bani Gala to be held Wednesday and discuss the parliamentary debate on the jurisdiction of the judiciary proposed by Prime Minister (PM) Shahid Khaqan Abbasi.
According to details, PM Abbasi has proposed a meeting to discuss judiciary’s jurisdiction and the next parliamentary session is expected to discuss the constitutional limits of the institutions.
However, PTI Vice Chairman Shah Mehmood Qureshi said that the party would review the situation since the government might want to pressurise the judiciary through this debate.
“We need to see if the government wants to somehow influence the ongoing cases in the judiciary against the ruling party’s president. We will not help the ridicule of the judiciary in any manner possible”, he maintained.
Also read: Parliament urged to debate constitutional domains of institutions
Criticising the ongoing wave of judicial activism while speaking on a point of order in the National Assembly, Abbasi said that confrontation among institutions would not serve the country. “Elected representatives are being referred to as thieves, dacoits and mafia in courts,” he said.
He requested the House to initiate a debate on the contours of the Parliament’s right to legislate and the government’s powers to take decisions based on those legislations. “It is my request to the opposition leader to not make this debate a partisan issue because today we are in government, but tomorrow there will be another party in power,” the premier said.
Commenting on the delay with which the PM had raised the issue, Opposition Leader Syed Khurshid Shah said the opposition had spoken in favour of parliamentary sovereignty from day one.
“It is the government, which kept the issue out of this House, like the Panama Papers issue,” he said, adding that the Parliament was the supreme forum for legislation.
