Supreme Court dismisses Hussain Haqqani’ plea for video-conference

The Supreme Court of Pakistan rejected a plea of former ambassador to the United States Hussain Haqqani, seeking permission for recording his statement through video link against the directives of the judicial commission.

The judicial commission headed by Justice Faez Isa, Chief Justice Balochistan High Court (BHC), asked Haqqani to personally appeared before the panel to record his statement in reply to the allegations leveled by US business tycoon, Mansoor Ijaz, in the infamous memogate case.

A nine-member bench of the apex court resumed proceedings on application of Hussain Haqqani, who sought permission to record his statement from abroad. However, the bench headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry dismissed the plea, upholding the decision of the memo commission.

The bench on Monday adjourned the hearing till today after Asma Jahangir, the lawyer for Hussain Haqqani, requested for producing some documents to the court.

During the short course of proceedings, the counsel for the former ambassador said that they were not interfering in the functioning of the Commission but on February 10, it passed an order saying that her client should appear in person under the Supreme Court order and its members could not go beyond the order ‘which has forbidden it’.

Asma Jehangir was of the opinion that her client was neither an accused nor an FIR (First Information Report) had been registered against him. However, the commission had prohibited him to record his statement through video link, she added.

In reply to this, Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry said that they couldn’t go into proceedings of the commission, observing that the ruling of the court should be respected.

In counter-argument, the counsel for Haqqani said clients kept on changing and from the very outset of their profession they had been taught such lessons. She said that she also wanted that not only rulings of the apex Court should be honored but also the laws of the land.

Naseer Bhutta, counsel for one of the petitioners, also appeared and objected to certain words of the application moved by Husain Haqqani and requested that those should be expunged.

Short URL: https://www.newspakistan.pk/?p=20091

Posted by Faisal Farooq on Apr 24 2012. Filed under Latest News, National, Pakistan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.