ISLAMABAD: A senior lawyer representing former president retired Gen Pervez Musharraf in the Supreme Court stirred up a hornet’s nest on Tuesday when he described the present constitution as ‘no constitution’ which did not reflect the will of the people.

But Mohammad Ibrahim Satti, the lawyer, had to eat his own words when a 14-judge bench reacted strongly to his remarks against the green book.

The full court headed by Chief Justice Tasadduq Hussain Jillani had taken up a petition seeking review of the apex court’s landmark July 31, 2009, verdict which had denounced successive military takeovers and their endorsement by the superior judiciary after declaring Gen Musharraf’s Nov 3, 2007, emergency and most of the actions taken under it, including the appointment of over 100 superior court judges, as illegal and unconstitutional.

“You did not consider the 1973 constitution a constitution under which you become the president and then you file review petition under the same constitution which you subverted and intends to do the same if situation so arises,” Justice Asif Saeed Khosa, a member of the bench, observed while objecting to Mr Satti’s remarks.

“The constitution under which we have taken oath of office of Supreme Court judges, you say is not a constitution,” Justice Khosa wondered.

“This is a fact,” Mr Satti insisted and explained that his client had every right to advance any argument available to him when the hangman’s noose was the only punishment of a trial he was facing under treason charges.

Whatever Mr Satti said was also part of the arguments in the review petition which stated that the Supreme Court was fully aware of the fact that the present constitution was not a constitution in real sense because it was not enforced or given by the Constituent Assembly elected under the Yahya Khan regime. Further, it said, the 1973 constitution had been passed by a fraction of West Pakistan members of the then National Assembly and as such the present constitution was nothing more than an act of some members of the assembly and, therefore, could never be described as the constitution because it lacked the ingredients of the constitution. Therefore, its violation does not entail high treason.

“We used to see some people in television claiming that they do not recognise the constitution, but I will not allow anyone to say this especially when I have taken oath to protect and preserve the constitution,” Justice Khilji Arif Hussain retorted.

Justice Khosa said this mindset was unfortunate and recalled that one of Gen Musharraf’s predecessors had once said that the constitution was a book which he could tear off anytime. What prompted Gen Musharraf to file the review petition was perhaps the filing of a treason complaint against him by the federal government; otherwise he was probably not pushed, Justice Khosa said.

To get himself out of the trouble, Mr Satti requested the court to let him withdraw his arguments which was allowed but with a warning to be careful in future.

The chief justice asked the counsel what would be his opinion if the Supreme Court while deciding his review petition directed the special court hearing treason charges against Gen Musharraf to continue with its proceedings on its own merit, independent of the July 31 judgment without getting any observations made in the verdict against him.

The counsel said that even such a direction would have its consequences since no court in the world could ignore the July 31 judgment and that was why he was arguing that the judgment was void in the eyes of the law. “This is the question of life and death of a former president who has every right to have access to justice like any other person and, therefore, we are knocking at the doors of the apex court which is the custodian of the constitution,” Mr Satti argued.

He referred to the 2009 Nawaz Sharif case in which he had approached the Supreme Court after a delay of nine years against his conviction in the plane conspiracy case on the grounds that he was out of the country and that he had no hope to get justice from the Dogar court.

He said Gen Musharraf had filed the review petition after four years and five months with the same contention that he was away and that he had no expectation to get justice from former chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry who had a personal grudge with him.

The court will resume hearing on Wednesday when Sharifuddin Pirzada will argue on bias after Mr Satti concludes his arguments.

Meanwhile, another review petition was filed by Barrister Syed Ali Zafar on behalf of the Lahore High Court Bar Association challenging the scope of the July 31, 2009, verdict. It said that a number of judges who had taken oath under the PCO after the Nov 3, 2007, emergency were forced to quit after contempt cases were instituted against them.

The petition argued that the July 31 verdict was biased and contravened provisions of the constitution because many judges had been removed without following the due process of law and as a result both the bar and the bench were deprived of eminent members of the judiciary.