KARACHI, April 26: The central leader of the Pakistan Muslim Leauge-Nawaz, Makhdoom Javed Hashmi, on Saturday said that political parties across the globe did not tolerate an independent and powerful judiciary as they wanted to exercise all the powers without any system of check and balance.

However, he added, the ruling coalition in Pakistan was committed to the restoration of the judiciary to its Nov-2 position because it was the decision of the masses for which they had given a heavy mandate to these parties.

The PML-N leader was speaking at a general body meeting of the Karachi Bar Association (KBA) at the Shuhada-i-Punjab Hall of the City Courts.

Shooting down the rumours regarding any constitutional package or a reduction in the tenure of judges, he said that such measures required a two-thirds majority in the parliament, which was not possible in the prevailing situation. However, he assured the legal fraternity that all the deposed judges would be unconditionally reinstated to their Nov-2 positions in the given time.

Lauding the year-long struggle of the legal fraternity, Mr Hashmi said that the lawyers of Karachi had played a very vital in the movement.

The PML-N leader said that the lawyers’ community had always opposed undemocratic forces and launched movements against every dictator. Actually, it was the lawyers’ struggle that took the country towards democracy, he said, adding that if the judges were not resorted in the given time, then he would join the lawyers’ long march.

Mr Hashmi was of the view that the era of dictatorship was about to end and urged the legal fraternity to direct their movement against feudalism and establishment.

KBA president Mahmoodul Hasan said if the presidency continued hatching conspiracies to sabotage the lawyers’ movement, then the lawyers would re-launch their struggle after May 3.

He said that President Musharraf was elected by the previous assembly, which had been rejected by the masses in the Feb 18 election, so it was high time that the political forces take action against the president instead of working out a constitutional package for the deposed judges.