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Pakistan forms parliamentary panel to review key constitutional provisions

By Bernard Hibbitts (editor) and University of Pittsburgh School of Law students.

[JURIST] Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari Saturday announced the formation of a parliamentary committee to examine the revision of key terms of the Pakistan Constitution. The revisions would include the elimination of the controversial 17th Amendment and Article 58-2(B), which give the president extraordinary power over Pakistani elected bodies, including the power to dissolve the country's parliament and remove individual MPs. News of the formation of the committee came in an address to a joint session of the parliament by Zardari, who invoked the memory of assassinated former prime minister Benazir Bhutto in making the announcement. The formation of the parliamentary committee comes towards the end of a month of political turmoil in Pakistan which culminated in the reinstatement of Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry Mohammed of the Supreme Court of Pakistan. Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani announced early last week that the government would reinstate Chaudhry in response to recent protests by members of the lawyers' movement and opposition politicians and supporters. Reports first surfaced in mid-March that President Zardari had agreed to reinstate Chaudhry and other judges ousted by Zardari's predecessor Pervez Musharraf in November 2007 after his declaration of emergency rule. Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and his Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) have actively campaigned for Chaudhry's reinstatement. Throughout the period of his removal Chaudhry insisted that he was still chief justice under the Pakistani constitution.

Full post as published by JURIST - The Paper Chase on March 28, 2009 (boomark / email).