The address of Justice Faez Isa in the National Assembly Hall on the occasion of the Golden Jubilee of the 1973 Construction, Pasban Democratic Party (PDP) Chairman Altaf Shakoor said that our constitution needs implementation, not just lip service, and all constitutional institutions must play their role in practical implication of law and constitution.
He said there is a need of a patch up between the parliament and judiciary, as their apparent tussle is being considered as a bad omen for the nation and country. He said visit abd address of Justice Faez Isa to Parliament is a huge welcome step in this regard. He said Parliament is the creator of the constitution and apex judiciary is its interpreter and both these constitutional institutions should work in tendom.
Altaf Shakoor regretted that they pay a lot of lip service to the constitution but their actions to get the constitution implemented in letter and spirit seems lackluster. He said the people are deprived of the basic rights enshrined in the constitution. He said people could not get their rights to education, healthcare, housing, jobs and security. He said the case of Dr Aafia Siddiqui is the textbook example of violation of the basic rights of Pakistani citizens. He said making Urdu our official language or scraping of discriminatory urban-rural quota system are still a distant dreams for the people of Pakistan. He said the constitutional institutions including judiciary and parliament seems not interested in this type of basic issues related to the common man.
Altaf Shakoor said the deadly debt trap is the matter of life and death for Pakistan but there is no discussion on this issue in our parliament and our top judges also shy away from taking suo moto on this vital and pressing issue. He said the country is facing a default and our constitutional institutions are busy in politics which is worrisome for the nation. He said bitter divide amongst the Supreme Court judges show how politics can damage our institutions. He said the judicial reforms are a must to ensure that our constitutional institutions work as per the spirit of the constitution, itself.
