LAHORE / QUETTA: Instead of removing Articles 62 and 63 from the Constitution, these should also be applied on judges, generals and bureaucrats, said Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) chief Sirajul Haq on Sunday.

Speaking at a press conference, he said such an equal application of the Constitution for all was necessary to cleanse the system of corruption.

Talking about the possible removal of the clauses, he said that amending the Constitution for one individual would not leave a good impression.

“This Constitution has kept Pakistan together for the last 44 years. Now, any tinkering with it could be damaging for the country,” Senator Haq warned. “If this document is opened for an individual, the country may end up being a confederation instead of federation.

That is why the Jamaat-i-Islami would oppose any such move,” he told media men at his party office.

Calls for applying Articles 62, 63 on judges, generals and bureaucrats

Earlier in the day, addressing a public meeting in Quetta, he said that ousted prime minister Nawaz Sharif and his sons had set the ‘worst example of arrogance’ by what he called refusing to appear before accountability courts.

“When we talk about accountability, they cry out that democracy is in danger,” he said and added that the threat to democracy did not come from accountability but from corruption and the ‘system based on plunder’.

About the Pakistan Muslim League-N’s desire to amend Articles 62 and 63 of the Constitution, which prescribe the criterion for qualification of a legislator, he said that no one could be allowed to frame a law of his own choice.

An individual who could not prove that he was Sadiq and Ameen, could not become an assembly member, insisted Mr Haq, who was one of the petitioners in the Panama Papers case.

Mr Sharif was expelled from prime minister’s office by the Supreme Court on the grounds that he was not Sadiq and Ameen because he had not declared the salary he was supposed to receive from his son’s UAE-based company in his nomination papers for the 2013 general elections.

Referring to Mr Sharif’s homecoming rally from Islamabad to Lahore, Mr Haq said that issuing threats to the courts during the GT Road rally and talking of “winding up the constitution” was not a democratic attitude.

He said that the attitude of the deposed premier would have been totally different if the court had decided (the Panama Papers case) in his favour.

The JI chief said it was due to ideological corruption that East Pakistan became Bangladesh. “Now Pakistan, which was established on the basis of the Kalima, is being divided on the basis of communities, sects and races.”

Senator Haq reiterated that the accountability law should be applied to generals, judges and bureaucrats as well. He said that a law that was not applicable to the rich could not be enforced on the poor as well.

“We are against the system that does not allow the masses to ask their rulers about the sources of their earnings,” he said.

Mr Haq said he would declare his party’s line of action in connection with its “Corruption-free Pakistan Campaign” in Islamabad on August 21.

He said that a handful of families, backed by what he called ‘international establishment’, had taken the country’s politics hostage. These families believed they had every right over property and honour of the poor and if anyone asked them about their assets and factories and mills, they became furious, he added.

Published in Dawn, August 21st, 2017