Prominent leader of the lawyers movement for restoration of judiciary, former Justice Tariq Mahmood has said that safe passage to the President Musharraf is a political issue and the political parties should decide it. About Musharraf's trial on the charge of violation of the constitution, he said that we should think of the positive and negative impact of the trial.
He was talking to reporters at a seminar on Human Rights and Media Training Programmes for Lawyers organised by Democratic Commission for Human Development and British High Commission here on Saturday. He said after the ouster of President Musharraf the government should focus on providing relief to the people who had been hardly hit by price hike.
He said the people seem to be happy over Musharraf's impeachment, as they are inquiring about his fate after removal from the office. "Mushrraf became President under the 17th amendment otherwise a government servant could not hold an elected office under the constitution", he added. He criticised the coalition government for not restoring the judges under the Murree Declaration and said that the lawyers rejected the constitutional package as well as the notification for appointment of eight judges of Sindh High Court, which was later on withdrawn under the lawyers' pressure.
He said the legal community does not accept any minus one formula nor endorses establishment's involvement in the political affairs since it undermines the democratic institutions. Abid Hassan Manto, Kamran Arif, Wahahat Massooq also spoke on the occasion. The seminar was attended by lawyers and large number of human rights activists.