KARACHI, April 3: Pakistan’s Supreme Court on Friday dropped the contempt of court cases against Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, Law Minister Khalid Anwar, several parliamentarians, lawyers and journalists.
In his 317-page judgement, Chief Justice Ajmal Mian, who headed the seven-judge panel which heard the clubbed together "set of petitions", observed on Friday, "We as the Pakistani nation should learn tolerance and inculcate the habit of appreciating the opposite point of view".
"Without an independent judiciary, neither can there be stability nor the rule of law, which are sine qua non for a progressive State," continued the judgement. The contempt case was filed against the Prime Minister at the head of the constitutional crisis between the government and the judiciary in November 1997. The then Chief Justice of Pakistan, Justice Sajjad Ali Shah, had issued notices to Sharif, federal ministers, parliamentarians, and members of the media after taking note of statements made by them against thejudiciary.
The notice was issued by Justice Shah on separate petitions seeking the disqualification of the Prime Minister under an article of the constitution that bars MPs from questioning the conduct of the judiciary.