ISLAMABAD, Aug 27: Law Minister Farooq H. Naek defended the incumbent Chief Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar on Wednesday and said he was the “rightful” Chief Justice of Pakistan and asked how could there be two chief justices in the country at the same time.

“Justice Dogar is a rightful chief justice and we have to think twice before reinstating the deposed chief justice (Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry) as it will create a constitutional crisis in the country,” the law minister told reporters outside the Parliament House.

“I am not propagating any minus-one formula (reinstatement of deposed judges except Justice Iftikhar),” the law minister said while trying to explain his statement and invited representative bodies of lawyers, including the Pakistan Bar Council (PBC) and Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA), to sit down with the government and come out with a plan to avoid constitutional impasse.

The PPP government, the law minister said, believed in reinstatement of the deposed judges as was evident from the fact that eight judges of the Sindh High Court (SHC) had resumed their duties. The government did not want confrontation with institutions. The minister reminded that the release of deposed judges from detention only became possible on the directives of Prime Minister Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani.

“If they (lawyers) want to resolve the issue of reinstatement of judges then they should come and sit with the government, otherwise they are free to come out on roads to do politics,” he said.

“By leaving the past we should move forward and endeavour to achieve the cherished goals of supremacy of constitution, democracy and the rule of law,” he said.

Claiming to be talking in constitutional terms, the law minister said that Chief Justice Dogar was not a PCO judge, but a judge “in his own right” who had taken oath under the Constitution both when he was appointed judge of the Sindh High Court in April 1995 and when he was elevated to the Supreme Court in April 2000.

Justice Dogar took oath under the Third Schedule of the Constitution when he became the chief justice, a requirement prescribed under Article 270 C of the Constitution which was not part of the 17th Constitution Amendment, he said.

About the proclamation of emergency, the minister said that the federal government was not condoning actions of former president Pervez Musharraf but in the wake of the Supreme Court judgment in the Tikka Iqbal case, validating Nov 3 actions, its hands were tight.

“Until the validation of proclamation of Nov 3 emergency is set aside by revisiting the apex court judgment, it is holding the field, leaving no room for the government but to give de fecto recognition to the verdict,” he added.

Referring to the forthcoming presidential elections, Mr Naek said that although Article 62 of the Constitution (Qualification for the membership of the parliament) applied to candidates aspiring for presidency, Article 63 (Disqualification) did not.

He also defended PPP co-chairperson Asif Ali Zardari and his vision and brushed aside a perception that his leader had gone back on any agreement signed with coalition parties on reinstatement of judges.