Minister of State for Interior Tallal Chaudhry on Saturday said the ruling coalition could introduce another constitutional amendment if needed to \u201cmaintain stability\u201d in the country.
\nHis remarks come just three days after the 27th Amendment was signed into law after passage from the National Assembly and the Senate, amid strong opposition by the opposition parties.
\nInsisting that the 26th and 27th Amendments brought \u201cstability\u201d to the country, Chaudhry said, \u201cIf another amendment is needed to maintain this stability, we will definitely bring it together with other parties.\u201d
\n\u201cThe parliament will bring amendments whenever it wants, and the parliament should do them. The parliament should be seen as a parliament,\u201d the PML-N leader said while addressing a media briefing in Punjab\u2019s Faisalabad.
\nResponding to a query, Chaudhry termed the recent resignations of superior court judges as \u201cpolitical\u201d.
\nOn November 13, the day the 27th Amendment was enacted into law, the Supreme Court\u2019s then-senior puisne judge Justice Mansoor Ali Shah and Justice Athar Minallah resigned, censuring the legislation as an \u201cassault\u201d on the Constitution and as weakening the judiciary.
\nA day later, Justice Shams Mehmood Mirza quit the Lahore High Court, also citing the 27th Amendment as the reason, and the Islamabad High Court might also see some departures.
\nThe state minister asserted that making amendments to the Constitution was the parliament\u2019s right.
\n\u201cJudges take oath under the Constitution; they are not a political party that they will resign if the Constitution is amended,\u201d the PML-N leader said. \u201cThe Constitution will not be as per their (judges\u2019) wishes, but of the parliament and the people of Pakistan,\u201d he asserted.
\n\u201cTheir (judges\u2019) every single thing \u2014 from their salaries to their decisions \u2014 is decided by the parliament,\u201d the state minister said.
\nHe further accused the senior judges who resigned of being \u201cbiased\u201d and of handing \u201cpolitical\u201d judgments.
\n\u201cThere have been many extensions of \u2018good to see you\u2019, but the environment is not the same anymore,\u201d Chaudhry quipped, referring to the renowned remark made by former Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Umar Ata Bandial in May 2023, when he said \u201cgood to see you\u201d to ex-premier Imran Khan upon his court appearance.
\nThe PML-N leader lamented the judges\u2019 alleged excessive use of suo-motus \u2014 the SC\u2019s power to take notice of matters of public importance but has now been revoked under the 27th Amendment \u2014 to \u201csend prime ministers home\u201d and assail the government on a whim.
\nOn the PTI\u2019s decision to boycott the upcoming by-elections in Faisalabad, Chaudhry said the party did not want to contest wherever there was considerable opposition.
\nBy-elections on two NA seats (NA-96, NA-104) and three provincial ones (PP-98, PP-115, PP-116) in Faisalabad district are set for November 23.
\nThe PML-N is likely to win all five seats up thanks to the PTI\u2019s boycott, the Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) being in no condition to contest due to the recent ban on it, and the PPP fielding no candidate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Minister of State for Interior Tallal Chaudhry on Saturday said the ruling coalition could introduce another constitutional amendment if needed to \u201cmaintain stability\u201d in the country. His remarks come just three days after the 27th Amendment was signed into law after passage from the National Assembly and the Senate, amid strong opposition by the opposition […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13444,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13443"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13443\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13445,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13443\/revisions\/13445"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}