Pakistan adrift from Founding Father's vision: Deposed Chief Justice Iftikhar

Pakistan adrift from Quaid’s vision: former CJP
Daily Times, December 26, 2007

ISLAMABAD: Deposed chief justice of Pakistan (CJP) Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry has said that this is the “darkest period in the country’s constitutional and political history” and that after 60 years of its creation Pakistan has drifted furthest from the Quaid’s vision.

“Now is the defining moment in the history of Pakistan. The Quaid wanted to see the nation prosper as a democratic state, where rule of law, freedom of speech and expression, equality, tolerance, justice and fair play, protection of human rights and civil liberties are ensured,” Chaudhry said in a message issued on Tuesday in connection with Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s 131st birthday and Christmas. The deposed CJP said the Quaid believed in religious freedom and economic independence for all citizens. In this regard he quoted from one of the Quaid’s famous speeches: “Minorities, to whichever community they may belong, will be safeguarded.”

“Being a great jurist and constitutional expert, the Quaid envisaged an independent judiciary in the country that could protect fundamental rights of all citizens and uphold the constitution and rule of law,” he said. “It is our commitment to make Pakistan the Quaid’s Pakistan, where there is supremacy of the constitution and rule of law rather than one-man rule,” he said. staff report