Pakistan: 'To follow constituion on Swiss letter'

Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Qamar Zaman Kaira on Wednesday said that the Constitution would be followed on the issue of writing a letter to the Swiss courts. Talking to media persons at Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Institute of Science and Technology here, Kaira said that Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf had already given the government’s stance on the issue. He the parliament is supreme, as it has the power to formulate new constitution as well as institutions. "It was agreed in Charter of Democracy that a new constitutional court would be established but Nawaz Sharif, who had signed the CoD, is now backing off," Kaira said. He said the Parliament was not formed by the Constitution but the former formulated the latter, and it is up to the Parliament to chalk out even a new constitution. The Parliament enjoys unquestionable supremacy because it also has the power to dissolve the existence institutions and establish new ones. To a question the Information Minister said: "We had responded to the NRO implementation case in light of the Constitution in the past and our reply will once again be in accordance with the Constitution." He said Raja Pervaiz Ashraf was Benazir Bhutto's choice whereas in Rental Power Projects he was given misleading figures and briefings by the bureaucracy. "He (Raja Pervaiz Ashraf) did not do anything on his own," he added. Kaira brushed aside as wrong the impression that millions of rupess were spent on ministers. Replying to another question, he said that Bilawal Bhutto Zardari was the Chairman of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and President Asif Ali Zardari had become the party co-chairman in extra-ordinary circumstances.