'PPP so far agreed for constitutional court', says Bilawal amid opposition's concerns

• We have no problem about who sits in constitutional court: Bilawal
• Your agenda could be a person-specific, not mine, says PPP chief.
• He asks Justice Mansoor if he will accept the constitutional court.

QUETTA: Commenting on the Pakistan Peoples Party's (PPP) support for the constitutional package, the party's Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari on Tuesday said that so far, his party had agreed to the government’s proposal for the formation of a federal constitutional court.

Addressing the Balochistan High Court (BHC) Bar in Quetta, Bilawal said his party had no problem if anyone of the top two judges of the country chaired the constitutional court.

“After the struggle of 30 years, we have decided to form a constitutional court,” he said, adding his struggle for the constitutional amendment was not for the current chief justice, Qazi Faez Isa. "Your agenda could be a person-specific, not mine," he added.

Expressing a profound respect for Justice Mansoor Ali Shah, he asked if he would accept the constitutional court, if the constitution said so. 

The government last month pushed the proposed constitutional package amid speculation about a potential extension in the tenure of Chief Justice Isa, who is set to retire in October this year, following the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) request in August for the early issuance of a notification regarding the appointment of the next top judge.

Despite claims of securing the "magic number" needed to push the bill through, the government failed to table the amendments in the parliament and postponed its move indefinitely.

To pass the constitutional amendments, the government is short of 13 votes in the National Assembly (NA) and nine in the Senate.

The PPP chairman said constitutional amendment was imperative to bring equality as he knew how difficult it was to get justice in the country. Nobody should be a sacred cow here, he added.

He said the charter of democracy’s first demand was setting up the federal constitutional court.

“We have been striving for judicial reforms for ages, but you want to let the same judiciary system prevail. There are so many cases that are not heard as every few months a [fresh] political case emerges,” he said, adding that he wished there was a constitutional court at provincial level as well.

He said they wanted such a system that could secure justice for people in the future. He said the constitutional court was not a new thing for him as he had been working on it since his mother promised for it.

He was not doing it for a specific judge and it was part of their manifesto, he said. “It cannot happen that I forget my manifesto in the fight and vote for someone else’s manifesto,” he said.