ISLAMABAD, 18 October 2007 — Pakistan’s Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry said yesterday that the present 11-member bench and not a full court would hear the petitions challenging Gen. Pervez Musharraf’s eligibility to run for president while being army chief.
The chief justice said this in response to a request by the petitioners seeking the reconstitution of a full court to hear the case.
Earlier, the head of the 11-member panel, Justice Javed Iqbal, said he had “no objection” to a full bench and referred the request to the chief justice for consideration. “I have no objection to a full court but the issue is to be decided by the chief justice. We are cautious of the fact that this is a high-profile matter,” Iqbal told the court. The request was opposed by government lawyers.
Chaudhry rejected the request late yesterday, and the court will resume hearings today in the case expected to run for several days.
“The chief justice considered the request and decided the same 11-member bench will hear the petitions from tomorrow,” his spokesman Arshad Munir told AFP yesterday.
The present 11-member bench is hearing arguments from two opposition candidates who say Musharraf was ineligible to stand because he is still army chief.
Musharraf cannot be declared the election winner until the Supreme Court has ruled.
The move came as more than 1,500 opposition protesters demonstrated outside the complex in support of the judiciary — and against Musharraf.
The demonstrators chanted anti-Musharraf slogans and waved banners as scores of police guarded the court.
Protests outside the Supreme Court have in recent months erupted in violence over Musharraf’s botched bid to sack Chaudhry in March, and amid increasing pressure for a return to democracy.
The protesters were joined by several hundred supporters of another former premier, Nawaz Sharif, as the court later heard a challenge against his deportation when he tried to return from exile on Sept. 10.
Pakistani authorities bundled Sharif — the man Musharraf ousted in 1999 —onto a plane to Saudi Arabia in defiance of a Supreme Court order that he had an “inalienable right” to come home.
The top court yesterday issued a string of summons to senior officials, including the foreign secretary, to attend court in coming weeks and explain the deportation.
“It appears the orders of the court were flouted,” Chaudhry told the court, referring to the judgment upholding Sharif’s right to return.
Chaudhry warned that the court would not hesitate to take “an extreme step” if the government was found guilty of forced deportation. He did not elaborate.
“I want to know who was responsible for the deportation,” he said.
Another report said the seven-member bench headed by Justice Chaudhry observed, “Nawaz Sharif sought remission in his jail sentence and went abroad through a third-party mediation. This cannot be termed forced exile.
“Under the constitution no citizen can be deported but in this case facts are different. Sharif was convicted, he sought remission in his sentence and was duly granted by the president of Pakistan.
“He went abroad through facilitation or mediation of a third party after furnishing an undertaking, therefore his exile cannot be termed forced exile.”
