LAHORE: Former prime minister and Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) President Nawaz Sharif has said that contrary to what many are saying, he has differences only with certain lawyers and not with the Supreme Court itself.
“Judges legitimised every martial law. Whenever there was a military coup in the country, no one would know about it but this is not the case today,” said Nawaz while talking in a meeting with a group of lawyers led by Naseer Bhutta. Nawaz’s daughter Maryam Nawaz, Punjab Governor Rafique Rajwana and PML-N Chairman Raja Zafarul Haq were also present on the occasion.
“We have to see what happened to people in 1971, when the country was broken up into two. They were the same people who worked day and night with Quaid-e-Azam to create Pakistan. Even today such games are being played,” said the former prime minister.
The ousted premier further said that ‘we are all responsible’ for not raising our voices against ‘the judiciary when it gave [military] dictators the right to make changes to the Constitution.’
“They [judges] gave away the right that they themselves don’t have,” he stressed, adding that the entire nation is now a witness to Pakistan’s situation.
“The reasons are right in front of us, they are written on a wall. We know our history of 70 years, the stages we have passed, all that we have lost, and how we have abrogated our Constitution,” he said.
“We know how our judicial system welcomed dictators and martial law administrators and invented the doctrine of necessity and yet we never held [anyone] accountable.”
