Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) has taken a serious view of the establishment's ham-handed attempts at dealing with the situation created by its reckless assault on the independence of the judiciary.
Chairperson HRCP Asma Jahangir said in a statement here on Thursday that resorting to brutal violence on lawyers in Lahore on Monday, and the roughing up of Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry by the Islamabad police on Tuesday deserved condemnation without any reservation.
Further, extraordinary efforts are being made to deny the people, especially the media and their right to help resolve the crisis confronting the country', she said. "We are familiar with the bar to commenting on matters sub judice but it is doubtful if this restriction can be defended at a time when the Judiciary and the basic tenets of the rule of law have been wantonly attacked by the executive.
Besides, the rule against criticism of the judiciary cannot be used to protect an executive that habitually transgresses its authority', she said.
Broader national interest demands that the government should desist from covering up its original folly in making the Chief Justice 'non-functional' with measures that clip the citizens' basic rights to freedom of expression and assembly, and to play their due role in protecting the constitutional scheme of judiciary's status as an independent organ of the state, Asma concluded.
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