Shahbaz had agreed on temporary restoration of CJ: WikiLeaks

WASHINGTON: According to a fresh leak by the international whistleblower WikiLeaks, Chief Minister Punjab Shahbaz Sharif had agreed on temporary restoration of Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry just for the sake of face saving.

The WikiLeaks in its latest disclosure, revealed the account of a meeting between the then US consul general Brian De Hunt and Shahbaz Sharif.

This meeting was held in March 2009 when the government of Shahbaz Sharif had been suspended while Nawaz Sharif was all set to go on a long march for the restoration of judges the very next day.

The leak said that Shahbaz Sharif had agreed that talks could be held on the issue if the Chief Justice was to be restored only symbolically. He said his party could not take the risk of backtracking from its stance on the Chief Justice’s restoration.

He had admitted that Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry was a man who could create problems and that his (CJ’s) powers needed to be carefully clipped. He said Chaudhry Iftikhar had also taken oath under Provisional Constitutional Order (PCO) and later on he could be removed if legislation was made in the light of the provisions of Charter of Democracy (CoD).

Shahbaz Sharif also proposed formation of a constitutional court having representatives from the two major parties to block implementation on the decisions coming from the CJ.

He also agreed that after the restoration of Chief Justice, President may set up benches and curtail the powers of CJ in connection with taking suo mottu notices.

In another revelation, WikiLeaks said that Nawaz Sharif and Shahbaz Sharif had decided to give all out support to the lawyers movement for restoration of deposed judges following the decision of the Supreme Court in which they were declared ineligible to hold office.

The leak further disclosed that before the SC decision PML-N leader Chaudhry Nisar while talking in the US embassy said 95 percent of the members of PML-N were against becoming part of the lawyers’ movement. But after the SC verdict, PML-N had no other choice but to support this movement.