LAHORE:
Many rulers and public figures in the world, when convicted for
committing different crimes or when they anticipated they would be
punished by law, have been blaming judiciary and casting aspersions on
it, but none has ever been as obnoxious and disrespectful as Senator
Faisal Raza Abidi has been of late.
Dubbed by most as a PPP ‘loose cannon,’ Abidi has been openly abusing and cursing the Pakistan Supreme Court Chief Justice and other arbiters on numerous television channels and newspapers since August 5, 2012, the day he formally started hurling serious allegations against the country’s top judge, his colleagues and family.
During his August 5, 2012 Press conference at the National Press Club in Islamabad, Senator Faisal Raza Abidi had maligned the apex court in the harshest possible words.
In what could easily be termed tirade against the Supreme Court, he had even accused the CJ of acquitting a terrorist who allegedly killed 100 people, besides publicly announcing that he would soon table a bill against the judges who had taken oath under the Provisional Constitutional Order (PCO).
Although Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry did take notice of Abidi’s Press conference and had sought footage of the press briefing soon after to see whether it came under contempt of court, no concrete action against the PPP Senator has yet been taken - something that has stunned most Pakistanis who heard what the Senator had said without blinking an eye! There is no doubt that questions will arise and give birth to many suspicions if Faisal Raza Abidi is not called to the court in foreseeable future and asked by the arbiters to show cause of his venom against the Supreme Court Chief Justice and other sitting judges.
The delay in this context has already irked many and raised quite a few eyebrows.
There is a long list of Abidi’s accusations against the Chief Justice, his colleagues and family, but what is most startling is the fact that the Senator has remained the most sought after guest for all television channels during the month of August.
Senator Abidi may be the most vocal and disrespectful of all court critics, but former Premier Yusuf Raza Gilani and PPP stalwart Sharjeel Memon, besides others, have also been using fairly contemptuous phrases against the judiciary in recent months.
Research conducted by The News reveals that this practice of ridiculing, condemning and disrespecting courts continues since 1803, when legendary US Chief Justice John Marshall (1755-1835) had exercised his judicial review powers in the Marbury v. Madison case, only to earn the wrath of the then president and his distant cousin, Thomas Jefferson.
Marshall, the longest-serving Chief Justice of the United States who dominated the Court for over three decades (1801-35), had invalidated a provision of the Judiciary Act of 1789 in this landmark Marbury v. Madison case, on the grounds that it violated the Constitution by attempting to expand the original jurisdiction of the Supreme Court. President Thomas Jefferson took the position that the Court could not give him an order, even if it had jurisdiction. More generally, Jefferson lamented that allowing the Constitution “to mean whatever the Court says it means would make the Constitution a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist and shape into any form they please.”
(Reference: Volume 3, Article 1, Section 8, Clause 18, Document 16 of the Founders’ Constitution, authored by Philip Kurland and Ralph Lerner)
While his court opinions laid the basis for American constitutional law, CJ Marshall had differences of opinion with various US Presidents.
In Worcester v. Georgia Case (1832), to the sheer annoyance of US President Andrew Jackson, the Marshall-led Supreme Court had held a Georgia state statute unconstitutional. This law actually prohibited non-Indians from being present on Indian lands without a licence from the state.
Breaking into a furious rage over the decision, President Jackson (as reported in various law journals), had said: “John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it!”
However, a book “They never said it” (authored by Paul Boller and John George), recognised this as a false quotation being wrongly attributed to President Jackson, though it admits the then US head of state was so angry with CJ Marshall that he could have said anything of the sort.
Sitting Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had also lashed out against the Indian Supreme Court in 2009, but within limits. According to the August 17, 2009 edition of the “Times of India,” PM Manmohan Singh had talked tough by terming - for the first time in judicial history - the backlog of 30 million cases in courts as a scourge.
Asking the Indian Supreme Court to be a role model as well as mentor, catalyst and organiser in this war against the scourge, Manmohan had wondered why an accomplished judiciary had to be snail-paced in disposing of cases.
He was quoted as saying: “Amidst such strengths, brilliance and dynamism (of the judiciary), India has to suffer the scourge of the world’s largest backlog of cases and timelines which generate surprise globally and concern at home.”
A couple of months ago, when the US Apex court had questioned President Barack Obama’s famous “Health Care Law” that required nearly all Americans to buy some form of health insurance or pay fine, the head of state had condemned the decision by saying: “ The law has support from legal experts across the ideological spectrum, including two very conservative appellate court justices that said this wasn’t even a close case.”
The comments from President Obama had come during a joint news conference at the White House with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Mexican President Felipe Calderon.
Recently, a Thai politician Yossawaris Chuklom was jailed for threatening and intimidating the Constitutional Court judges of Thailand. His bail was revoked. Yossawaris had criticised the Constitution Court for ordering Parliament on June 1 to postpone the third reading of a constitution amendment bill allegedly designed to favour fugitive ex-prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
He had publicly announced the personal information of Constitution Court judges, including their phone numbers, and had urged demonstrators to visit and call them. The Criminal Court had ruled that his action as well as his voice, facial expressions and gestures proved that he intended to incite hatred against the court.
(Reference: The Bangkok Post edition of August 23, 2012)
In Sri Lanka, as Lanka News reported on August 20, 2012 the country’s President Mahinda Rajapaksa had hinted of initiating legal action against the sitting Chief Justice Dr Shirani Bandaranayake’s husband if she tried to overstep her limits. The Sri Lankan president had said he would move court against CJ’s husband and former National Savings Bank chairman, Pradeep Kariyawasam, over various irregular transactions he had been engaged in. The presidential statement had come soon after the Chief Justice had resolved to safeguard the independence of the judiciary when making decisions related to cases. The president also said the Chief Justice would be allowed to hold the office only for a limited time period.
This correspondent had reported in July 5, 2012 edition of The News that many rulers in the world, when convicted for committing culpable crimes, have blamed judiciary routinely.
These rulers include the likes of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussain, former three-time Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, former Thai Premier Thaksin Shinawatra, former Filipino President Joseph Estrada, former Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, former Liberian President Charles Taylor and former Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali etc.
When Saddam Hussein was sentenced to death on November 5, 2006, he had shouted, “Long live the people. Long live the Arab nation. Down with the spies. God is great.”
(Reference: Al-Jazeera TV)
Ex-Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi had called the Italian judiciary a “cancerous growth.” (Reference: A Reuters’ report of June 25, 2008)
According to Reuters, Berlusconi had claimed that 789 prosecutors and magistrates had taken interest in his affairs from 1994 to 2006 “with the aim of subverting the votes of the Italian nation,” asserting that while the police had visited him 577 times, he had attended 2,500 court hearings and had paid 174 million Euros in lawyers’ bills.
Thaksin Shinawatra, a former Thai Premier, had also slated his country’s judiciary publicly after the court had found him guilty of a conflict of interest in the purchase of land in Bangkok and had sentenced him in absentia to two years imprisonment in October 2008.
The New York Times (October 21, 2008) had quoted him as saying: “The case is politically motivated and you know what politics in Thailand is like.” “Reuters had also quoted his post-verdict views: “I have been informed of the result. I had long anticipated that it would turn out this way. This case is politically motivated.”
Joseph Estrada, a former president of the Philippines, had claimed that the anti-graft court had admitted inadmissible hearsay evidence, surmises, inferences and speculative proofs, which violated his right to confront the witnesses against him. Estrada was sentenced in September 2007 by a court on charges of plundering $86 million.
Former Liberian president, Charles Taylor, was yet another ruler who had refused to accept the court decision against him.
He was found guilty by the International Court of Justice (Hague) in April 2012 in all the 11 charges of terror, murder and rape. In May, he was sentenced to 50 years in prison.
A CNN report of May 16, 2012 had quoted Taylor as saying: “President George W Bush ordered torture and admitted to doing so. Torture is a crime against humanity. The United States has refused to prosecute him. Is he above the law? Where is the fairness?”
Former Tunisian president, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and his wife Laila Ali were sentenced in absentia to 35 years in prison on June 20, 2011, after being found guilty of theft and unlawful possession of cash and jewellery. They were also fined 45.5 million Euros. According to an AFP report of June 21, 2011, he had termed his 35-year jail sentence insane. Speaking through his Paris-based lawyer, the exiled Ben Ali said the Tunis court had “delivered a sentence that is judicially insane but politically opportune, a “parody of justice” and “political liquidation.” Last but not the least, the recently ousted Pakistani Premier Yusuf Raza Gilani had said during his public address at Mailsi (Southern Punjab) on March 15, 2012 -before his conviction and ouster by court on contempt charges - that the judges considered him a peon rather than a prime minister.
He had bluntly said he would prefer jail to writing a letter to the Swiss authorities against President Asif Zardari on the Supreme Court orders.
No matter how harsh all these afore-mentioned rulers and public figures have been against the courts, none has ever been as disrespectful and impolite as Senator Faisal Raza Abidi.
Dubbed by most as a PPP ‘loose cannon,’ Abidi has been openly abusing and cursing the Pakistan Supreme Court Chief Justice and other arbiters on numerous television channels and newspapers since August 5, 2012, the day he formally started hurling serious allegations against the country’s top judge, his colleagues and family.
During his August 5, 2012 Press conference at the National Press Club in Islamabad, Senator Faisal Raza Abidi had maligned the apex court in the harshest possible words.
In what could easily be termed tirade against the Supreme Court, he had even accused the CJ of acquitting a terrorist who allegedly killed 100 people, besides publicly announcing that he would soon table a bill against the judges who had taken oath under the Provisional Constitutional Order (PCO).
Although Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry did take notice of Abidi’s Press conference and had sought footage of the press briefing soon after to see whether it came under contempt of court, no concrete action against the PPP Senator has yet been taken - something that has stunned most Pakistanis who heard what the Senator had said without blinking an eye! There is no doubt that questions will arise and give birth to many suspicions if Faisal Raza Abidi is not called to the court in foreseeable future and asked by the arbiters to show cause of his venom against the Supreme Court Chief Justice and other sitting judges.
The delay in this context has already irked many and raised quite a few eyebrows.
There is a long list of Abidi’s accusations against the Chief Justice, his colleagues and family, but what is most startling is the fact that the Senator has remained the most sought after guest for all television channels during the month of August.
Senator Abidi may be the most vocal and disrespectful of all court critics, but former Premier Yusuf Raza Gilani and PPP stalwart Sharjeel Memon, besides others, have also been using fairly contemptuous phrases against the judiciary in recent months.
Research conducted by The News reveals that this practice of ridiculing, condemning and disrespecting courts continues since 1803, when legendary US Chief Justice John Marshall (1755-1835) had exercised his judicial review powers in the Marbury v. Madison case, only to earn the wrath of the then president and his distant cousin, Thomas Jefferson.
Marshall, the longest-serving Chief Justice of the United States who dominated the Court for over three decades (1801-35), had invalidated a provision of the Judiciary Act of 1789 in this landmark Marbury v. Madison case, on the grounds that it violated the Constitution by attempting to expand the original jurisdiction of the Supreme Court. President Thomas Jefferson took the position that the Court could not give him an order, even if it had jurisdiction. More generally, Jefferson lamented that allowing the Constitution “to mean whatever the Court says it means would make the Constitution a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist and shape into any form they please.”
(Reference: Volume 3, Article 1, Section 8, Clause 18, Document 16 of the Founders’ Constitution, authored by Philip Kurland and Ralph Lerner)
While his court opinions laid the basis for American constitutional law, CJ Marshall had differences of opinion with various US Presidents.
In Worcester v. Georgia Case (1832), to the sheer annoyance of US President Andrew Jackson, the Marshall-led Supreme Court had held a Georgia state statute unconstitutional. This law actually prohibited non-Indians from being present on Indian lands without a licence from the state.
Breaking into a furious rage over the decision, President Jackson (as reported in various law journals), had said: “John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it!”
However, a book “They never said it” (authored by Paul Boller and John George), recognised this as a false quotation being wrongly attributed to President Jackson, though it admits the then US head of state was so angry with CJ Marshall that he could have said anything of the sort.
Sitting Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had also lashed out against the Indian Supreme Court in 2009, but within limits. According to the August 17, 2009 edition of the “Times of India,” PM Manmohan Singh had talked tough by terming - for the first time in judicial history - the backlog of 30 million cases in courts as a scourge.
Asking the Indian Supreme Court to be a role model as well as mentor, catalyst and organiser in this war against the scourge, Manmohan had wondered why an accomplished judiciary had to be snail-paced in disposing of cases.
He was quoted as saying: “Amidst such strengths, brilliance and dynamism (of the judiciary), India has to suffer the scourge of the world’s largest backlog of cases and timelines which generate surprise globally and concern at home.”
A couple of months ago, when the US Apex court had questioned President Barack Obama’s famous “Health Care Law” that required nearly all Americans to buy some form of health insurance or pay fine, the head of state had condemned the decision by saying: “ The law has support from legal experts across the ideological spectrum, including two very conservative appellate court justices that said this wasn’t even a close case.”
The comments from President Obama had come during a joint news conference at the White House with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Mexican President Felipe Calderon.
Recently, a Thai politician Yossawaris Chuklom was jailed for threatening and intimidating the Constitutional Court judges of Thailand. His bail was revoked. Yossawaris had criticised the Constitution Court for ordering Parliament on June 1 to postpone the third reading of a constitution amendment bill allegedly designed to favour fugitive ex-prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
He had publicly announced the personal information of Constitution Court judges, including their phone numbers, and had urged demonstrators to visit and call them. The Criminal Court had ruled that his action as well as his voice, facial expressions and gestures proved that he intended to incite hatred against the court.
(Reference: The Bangkok Post edition of August 23, 2012)
In Sri Lanka, as Lanka News reported on August 20, 2012 the country’s President Mahinda Rajapaksa had hinted of initiating legal action against the sitting Chief Justice Dr Shirani Bandaranayake’s husband if she tried to overstep her limits. The Sri Lankan president had said he would move court against CJ’s husband and former National Savings Bank chairman, Pradeep Kariyawasam, over various irregular transactions he had been engaged in. The presidential statement had come soon after the Chief Justice had resolved to safeguard the independence of the judiciary when making decisions related to cases. The president also said the Chief Justice would be allowed to hold the office only for a limited time period.
This correspondent had reported in July 5, 2012 edition of The News that many rulers in the world, when convicted for committing culpable crimes, have blamed judiciary routinely.
These rulers include the likes of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussain, former three-time Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, former Thai Premier Thaksin Shinawatra, former Filipino President Joseph Estrada, former Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, former Liberian President Charles Taylor and former Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali etc.
When Saddam Hussein was sentenced to death on November 5, 2006, he had shouted, “Long live the people. Long live the Arab nation. Down with the spies. God is great.”
(Reference: Al-Jazeera TV)
Ex-Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi had called the Italian judiciary a “cancerous growth.” (Reference: A Reuters’ report of June 25, 2008)
According to Reuters, Berlusconi had claimed that 789 prosecutors and magistrates had taken interest in his affairs from 1994 to 2006 “with the aim of subverting the votes of the Italian nation,” asserting that while the police had visited him 577 times, he had attended 2,500 court hearings and had paid 174 million Euros in lawyers’ bills.
Thaksin Shinawatra, a former Thai Premier, had also slated his country’s judiciary publicly after the court had found him guilty of a conflict of interest in the purchase of land in Bangkok and had sentenced him in absentia to two years imprisonment in October 2008.
The New York Times (October 21, 2008) had quoted him as saying: “The case is politically motivated and you know what politics in Thailand is like.” “Reuters had also quoted his post-verdict views: “I have been informed of the result. I had long anticipated that it would turn out this way. This case is politically motivated.”
Joseph Estrada, a former president of the Philippines, had claimed that the anti-graft court had admitted inadmissible hearsay evidence, surmises, inferences and speculative proofs, which violated his right to confront the witnesses against him. Estrada was sentenced in September 2007 by a court on charges of plundering $86 million.
Former Liberian president, Charles Taylor, was yet another ruler who had refused to accept the court decision against him.
He was found guilty by the International Court of Justice (Hague) in April 2012 in all the 11 charges of terror, murder and rape. In May, he was sentenced to 50 years in prison.
A CNN report of May 16, 2012 had quoted Taylor as saying: “President George W Bush ordered torture and admitted to doing so. Torture is a crime against humanity. The United States has refused to prosecute him. Is he above the law? Where is the fairness?”
Former Tunisian president, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and his wife Laila Ali were sentenced in absentia to 35 years in prison on June 20, 2011, after being found guilty of theft and unlawful possession of cash and jewellery. They were also fined 45.5 million Euros. According to an AFP report of June 21, 2011, he had termed his 35-year jail sentence insane. Speaking through his Paris-based lawyer, the exiled Ben Ali said the Tunis court had “delivered a sentence that is judicially insane but politically opportune, a “parody of justice” and “political liquidation.” Last but not the least, the recently ousted Pakistani Premier Yusuf Raza Gilani had said during his public address at Mailsi (Southern Punjab) on March 15, 2012 -before his conviction and ouster by court on contempt charges - that the judges considered him a peon rather than a prime minister.
He had bluntly said he would prefer jail to writing a letter to the Swiss authorities against President Asif Zardari on the Supreme Court orders.
No matter how harsh all these afore-mentioned rulers and public figures have been against the courts, none has ever been as disrespectful and impolite as Senator Faisal Raza Abidi.
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