LAHORE, June 30: Former prime minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani has said he quit his office respecting the judiciary though only the parliament has the authority to disqualify a premier.

“Refusal to accept the (Supreme Court) decision would have set a wrong precedent, paving the way for defiance of court orders in future,” said Mr Gilani in his keynote address at a seminar on ‘Clash of institutions and sustainability of democracy,’ organised by South Asia Free Media Association (Safma) at a hotel on The Mall on Saturday.

“I followed in the footsteps of Socrates who preferred to accept a bowl filled with poison than to disgrace the judiciary,” said the former prime minister amid slogans “Jamhooriat ki nishani, Yousaf Raza Gilani.”

He said in fact it was his victory that the parliament decided not to disqualify him.

“I am the only prime minister who was bade farewell with honour and full protocol. People come and go, but the system should stay. Prime ministers do not matter but the parliament does and it should complete its tenure. Democracy will never derail in the country if two parliaments are allowed to complete their tenures,” he said.

Mr Gilani said under Article 248 of the Constitution, the president, the prime minister and the foreign minister had absolute immunity till they hold their offices.

“Whatever I did was according to my oath and to protect the Constitution. History will decide whether or not the (Supreme Court) decision was right. Sweets were also distributed when a decision against Shaheed Bhutto was announced,” he said.

Earlier, MQM MNA Waseem Akhtar said all state institutions should remain within their constitutional jurisdiction. The country was passing through a transitional phase in which democracy was gaining ground.

“The people raising hue and cry for early elections should wait for another seven months. Our friends in the PML-N asked us to resign and we respectfully requested them that since they have more MNAs in the parliament, they should first do so and we will follow the suit.”

Mr Akhtar expressed the optimism that the number of “good people” in the parliament would increase with passage of time.

Earlier, noted lawyer Hamid Ali Khan said there was neither a clash of institutions in Pakistan nor any chance of a military takeover and all such perceptions were rooted in misconceptions about the working of the state institutions.

He insisted that those who were clear about the role of institutions see no clash. From the outset, one should remain clear that the judiciary had the right, and it is accepted world over, to interpret constitution, he added.

“If that premise is accepted, there is no clash. The judiciary is only doing what it requires to do in a democratic setup,” he said and insisted: “The clash theory is manufactured by those who don’t want to be subjected to the law of the land. To them, democracy is the name of financial and moral corruption, bad governance, immoral political maneuvering and deals cutting.

Any person or institution which tries to remind them of their misdeeds is accused of clashing with democracy.”

Second misconception, giving way to such theories and rumors, is the sovereignty of the parliament. This sovereignty fallacy draws its context from British system, which is unique for not having a written constitution. In countries (like Pakistan) having a written constitution, the parliament automatically becomes sovereign and defines relationship between different pillars of the state.

Thirdly, he said, the judiciary could not be equated with government. “It (the judiciary) is not elected and exists as an organ of the state and a protector of the constitution. Governments come and go only to work under the constitution. They work under the constitution, but cannot interpret it. If both these misconceptions are removed, one would not see any clash,” he said.

As far as sustainability of democracy was concerned, it would largely depend how transparent would be the next elections and how credible were those conducting the exercise, he said.

Ahsan Iqbal of the PML-N was of the view that post-martial law period was always difficult where different state organs tried to redefine their role in new dispensation. “Currently, some organs – like the media and the judiciary – are trying to find new roles. It is a crucial stage, where the parliament also should have found a new role for itself. But for doing that, it had to take all political forces on board.

“The democracy is not an end itself, but means to an end. People want democracy because it leads to economic prosperity, social cohesion, political stability and a legally function state. If these four factors go missing, no system can be termed a democracy. Any government has to deserve respect before demanding it,” he concluded.

Prof Waseem Ahmed, however, thought that the judiciary was encroaching upon the space of legislature by doing parallel legislation (through different directives).

“It (the judiciary) also vetoed the government plan to appoint judges, and reserved it for itself. Of late, it has also refused to be answerable to any other state organ, especially the parliament. To top it all, there is a creeping sense of arbitrariness. All these factors set the judiciary over and above the rest of the state, which is a dangerous development. No democracy could afford that,” he claimed.