General elections may prove to be referendum against judiciary, says Farhatullah Babar

The forthcoming general elections may prove to be a referendum with regard to judiciary.

These views were expressed by the PPP Senator Farhutullah Babar while speaking on the floor of the upper house on Tuesday.

“I want to request the honorable judges that don’t tread a path which may result in a referendum against you,” said Senator Babar.

“The Constitution is not what is written in it, but the one which Baba Rehmat says it is,” he said, amid a round of applause from the fellow senators.

“Mr Chairman, I feel concerned when our very honorable judges read poetry instead of quoting the law and constitution,” he added.

The term Baba Rehmat is reference to a speech delivered by Chief Justice Saqib Nisar at a seminar in Lahore on December 16 last year.

The chief justice said: "The judiciary is like Baba Rehmat (a village elder). Do not doubt its integrity."

The senator, who is among those retiring this month, said politicising the judiciary and vice versa had endangered the parliament. “This is alarming because the Chief Justice of Pakistan Saqib Nisar promised that he has no political agenda,” he added.

In November 2017, Senator Farhatullah Babar resigned from the parliamentary committee on accountability laws. On October 20, 2017, Babar had resigned from the Senate Standing Committee on Defence, while refusing to share the reason for his resignation with the media.

In the recent Senate polls, a number of prominent senators retired after the completion of their respective tenures.