ISLAMABAD: Sardar Latif Khosa has been ousted as president of the People’s Lawyer Forum (PLF) by Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Chairperson Bilawal Bhutto Zardari as a result of his remarks about the coalition government.
Syed Nayyer Hussain Bokhari, the PPP Secretary General, has now been assigned extra responsibility for the position. The PPP Chairman Secretariat also notified Jameel Soomro, his political secretary.
Sources claim that Khosa’s recent interviews and criticism of the coalition government, particularly the PML-N on judicial affairs, did not sit well with the PPP leadership. Khosa has consistently criticized the coalition government’s policies and decisions in the guise of stating the facts. He has been highly outspoken about them.
Khosa had publicly disagreed with the decision when the government, which the Pakistan Democratic Movement led, introduced the measure restricting the chief justice’s authority in the parliament. He claimed that the Supreme Court-related law “gags the judiciary.”
At a press briefing outside the Supreme Court, the former governor said that the timing of the Supreme Court (Practice and Procedure) Bill, 2023, was incorrect.
Khosa argued that the opinions of those who did not sit on the Supreme Court’s bench could not be considered in the judgement on the dispute surrounding the court’s March 1 ruling. On another occasion, he also phoned Maryam Nawaz, senior vice president of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), and accused her of criticizing the judiciary.