MIAN DAWOOD

LAHORE – Chaudhry Aitzaz Ahsan, counsel of Prime Minister in contempt of court case in Supreme Court, on Monday admitted that Article 248 of the Constitution which gives immunity to the President is a discriminatory law.
‘Article 248 can be removed from the Constitution only by the approval by two-thirds majority after a new amendment’, he said by putting the ball in the court of the Parliament.
‘There is no need to go to any court for seeking immunity by the President. The apex court should also accept this ‘protective’ clause in the Constitution’, PPP stalwart said while talking to journalists at Lahore High Court premises.
If a writ petition against the Chief Justice Pakistan or the Chief Justice of High Court is filed, the court office would not accept it because applications could not be filed against them and neither the CJs would come to claim the immunity, he said.
‘The immunity is not for a person it is for the office of the President whoever occupies it whether he is Zardari, Leghari, Ghulam Ishaq,etc’, Aitzaz added.
Regarding the Swiss cases, he said that the very next day the President resigns, the Federal government can write a letter against him to Swiss authorities for reopening the cases against PPP’s Co-Chairman.
‘No criminal proceedings whatsoever shall be constituted against President until the tenure of his office’, Ahsan responded to a question while reading a clause from the Constitution.
He reiterated that President Asif Ali Zardari enjoyed blanket immunity from the criminal cases in and outside Pakistan under the Constitution and Vienna Conventions till he remains the President of the country.
‘I have not charged any fee from the Prime Minister for taking up his case in the Supreme Court’,he said and ,added, he had infact agreed to take up the case on condition that the Prime Minister would present himself respectfully before the court and that government officials would refrain from issuing statements against the judiciary.
Answering a question regarding Prime Minister’s standpoint before apex court hearing the NRO Implementation case, Aitzaz said the President enjoys the immunity and there is no contempt of court.
He said that it was everybody’s Constitutional right to hire a counsel of his choice.
In the second phase of his conversation with reporters, Aitzaz Ahsan strongly criticised Justice (Retd) Khalilur Rehman Ramday for his interview with a private television.
‘Ramday has no right to interpret the Constitution according to his own mind’, he said ,adding, Ramday should not have given interview and respond to suggestive questions hurled by the anchorperson of that private television.
 ‘I am greatly saddened by the interview of Justice Ramday’, Aitzaz said.
Asked if he would file an application in the Supreme Court against the interview, he said Ramday is a friend and he would hug him whenever they meet.