ISLAMABAD  - Retired chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry stated on Thursday there is no danger to democracy in Pakistan as a result of the different decisions and steps taken by the Supreme Court, expressing confidence that the court will be the major stumbling block if anyone tried to subvert the Constitution.
In an interview here, the former justice said had he not confronted former military ruler Pervez Musharraf it would not have been possible for Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif to return to Pakistan, and Musharraf would have been ruling the country even today.
He said he had no immediate plan to enter politics. The biggest problem of Pakistan was the outdated system due of which patwaris and constables had become 'Pharaoh', he added.
Chaudhry said while notice was taken on illegal orders of the president and prime minister, the system could not take patwaris and constables to task. He admitted that despite all efforts of the court that made the chief secretaries, IGs, federal secretaries to appear before it, one could see difficulties of the people, system of justice, education and health, lack of job opportunities, highhandedness of institutions and lust for power among politicians. He said “he thinks that even if he works for hundred years, it would not be sufficient to reform the system”.
The former justice said Pakistan faced four major problems of outdated and ineffective government system, incompetent politicians, bureaucracy and generals who were not willing to consider them as public servants. He said still some elements treated Pakistan as a British colony and dealt with the people as representatives of His Majesty.
He said unless and until these people were made servants of the people instead of viceroys, problems of the masses would not resolve. “That is the reason the people do not consider themselves as independent and are subservient to their lords in one way or the other. The people keep themselves restricted to applications and appeals and do not consider themselves as a nation, and there was need to make them realise that they were a nation.
Asked if he would enter the political arena after retirement, Chaudhry said he did not consider himself as a leader but a judge and wanted to die in this capacity. He said it was his desire that the people remembered him as a lawyer or a good lawyer at the most and he did not want to leave this world with black spot of politics on his hands.