The Supreme Court of Pakistan (SC) is set to hear a presidential request next week to review the murder case verdict of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, the founder of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP).
Asif Ali Zardari, who was president at the time, and the head of the Pakistan People’s Party Parliamentarians (PPPP), asked the Supreme Court (SC) on April 2, 2011, what it thought about retrying Bhutto’s case under Article 186 of the Constitution of Pakistan.
But, for the past 12 years, the reference has not been settled.
On Thursday, the committee of three top judges, which includes Chief Justice Pakistan (CJP) Qazi Faez Isa, will decide how to set the case and make the bench.
Although Babar Awan has now joined the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), he used to be the federal government’s lawyer in the case and made long arguments.
But on January 17, 2012, Awan’s licence to practise law was taken away because he didn’t agree with the court’s decision in the Memogate case.
On November 11, 2012, the highest court last heard the presidential reference case. However, Aitzaz Ahsan, who was the leader and counsel for the PPP, could not be there because he had to go to Karachi to attend the funeral of the late Iqbal Haider, who was a senior attorney of the Supreme Court and a member of the party.
The Supreme Court accepted the five basic questions of law about reopening the case of the former prime minister on April 21, 2011, and asked a number of legal experts to help it with the matter as “amicus curiae,” or friends of the court.
It’s important to note that some of the amici have died.
As of January 2, 2012, the Supreme Court also sent a warning to Ahmed Raza Kasuri, the person who had filed a FIR against the PPP founder. In his answer, Kasuri said that the case shouldn’t be reopened because the president was a “interested party.”
It is important to note that the judges have never used the Supreme Court’s decision on Bhutto’s hanging as a model in any other case.
