Nasirul Mulk sworn in as caretaker PM

Fuente: 
The Express Tribune
Fecha de publicación: 
01 Jun 2018

Justice (retd) Nasirul Mulk on Friday took oath as the country’s interim prime minister.

The newly-appointed caretaker chief executive’s oath was administered by President Mamnoon Hussain at the President House. Following the ceremony, Justice Mulk was presented a guard of honour by the armed forces.

Speaking to the media after the oath-taking, the interim premier said free and fair polls were his priority.

“Mark my words, general polls will be held timely,” Mulk said,

He further reaffirmed that he would undertake his responsibilities diligently and have a small cabinet.

The erstwhile chief justice assumed charge as the nation’s 29th prime minister after the incumbent government became the second to complete its tenure at midnight on May 31.

Justice Mulk, popular as the ‘English’ judge, was noted for exercising judicial restraint with emphatic support by the legal fraternity.

During his tenure as the country’s chief justice, he did not initiate any suo motu proceedings. After his retirement, when lawyer Raheel Kamran Sheikh asked Justice Mulk as to why he did not take suo motu notices, the latter replied that if a judge takes suo motu notice, it means that he has already decided to move in certain directions and cannot act impartially.

Justice Mulk also headed the bench that rejected the plea to disqualify former prime minister Nawaz Sharif for lying on the floor of the National Assembly. He, along with two other fellow judges, accepted the task of probing rigging claims in the last general elections and headed the judicial commission for the purpose.

Justice Mulk was among seven judges who had passed restraining order against the November 3 emergency and the Provisional Constitutional Order (PCO). He was also among those judges who had refused to take oath under the November 3 PCO in 2007.

The former chief justice also delivered an 88-page judgment in the 18th and 21st Amendment case. In the verdict, he declared that Parliament was authorised to introduce any constitutional amendment. This, according to the judgement, could not be challenged in any court of law.

He, along with two other fellow judges, accepted the task of probing rigging claims in the last general elections and headed the judicial commission for the purpose. All major parties had praised his conduct during the proceedings of the inquiry commission. After spending 86 days, the CJP had rejected the rigging allegations.

The Express Tribune

https://tribune.com.pk/story/1724763/1-justice-mulk-takes-oath-caretaker...