Kurd unhappy over SC verdict on NRO, Anjum Niaz,

Speaking during a talk show on “Challenges facing the judiciary”, he said that people had reservations about the verdict handed down by the Supreme Court on petitions challenging the National Reconciliation Ordinance. According to him, the judgment appeared to be based on newspaper headlines and talk shows of private TV channels. Mr Kurd said that an independent judiciary had been restored after a great struggle, adding that the country would become stronger if the judiciary acted in the manner expected by the nation during the struggle. “If it does not happen, it will cause a blow to national security.”
Human Rights Commission of Pakistan Chairperson Asma Jehangir also criticised the Supreme Court’s judgment on the NRO and said it appeared to be a decision pronounced by a ‘jirga’. She was of the opinion that the NRO could have been declared null and void by merely declaring it as repugnant to Article 25 of the Constitution, but a Pandora’s box had been opened by the court. Syed Iqbal Haider and Justice (retd) Tariq Mehmood also spoke on the occasion.

Anjum Niaz - Barrister Jawaid Iqbal Jafree does not think so. "Two days ago, the Lahore high Court heard my 11-year-old writ in which I had prayed back in 1997 that assets of corrupt politicians and bureaucrats and their touts, accessories and advocates be frozen and confiscated for national treasury." The barrister from Harvard Law School, who is an artist with several international art exhibitions under his belt, is somewhat of a maverick. His writ petitions are peculiarly penned. I doubt if many in our courts can fathom the double entendres laced with humorous or rhetorical effect they are meant to evoke. Puns and parables aside, he is a lone crusader whose voice against the corrupt has so far been choked. He's unfazed. Happy that his decade-old petition may yet have a ripple effect, he says: "The revival of my writ is causing much concern, because there is no pardon in my books. I am disinterested in paisa, power, pelf or patronage." ...Jafree requested the court to withdraw immunity for VVIPs like Nawaz Sharif and Asif Ali Zardari and freeze their wealth. "My original writ was way ahead of the present furore. Had the matter not been delayed and time wasted since 2000, today Pakistan would not be the begging-bowl state where philanderers and forex mafia rule, while half the nation goes without two meals a day. I had offered to excavate and extract $20 billion from 200 'top' money-launderers within a year provided there was no interference or intrusion."

The Supreme Court on Tuesday gave a final warning to those who have managed to get their loans written off from financial institutions during the last 38 years and directed the State Bank to furnish a list of loan defaulters right from 1971 to date. “Only one chance will be given to defaulters to return the loans and strict action will be taken against them without any discrimination,” Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry observed while heading a three-member bench of the apex court hearing a suo moto case of Rs 54 billion written-off loans.