Lahore, Apr 28: PPP co-Chairman Asif Ali Zardari has said that he wished to revamp the country’s judiciary and enact a new legislation to change the system so that no person languishes in jail for years together, like him.

He said he wanted to change the system so that “no Zardari languishes in jail again for 8 years”.

Recalling his own prison term, he said he had been imprisoned for two years for his alleged role in the BMW case and had appeared before the sacked CJ five times. The CJ said he could not hear “the case because he had not read it”, Zardari added.

He said he wanted to restore the judiciary so that “Chaudhry Ifitikhar cannot say that ‘I have not read the case so cannot hear it”. However, he said, he was not critical of the sacked CJ, but rather the system as it presently exists.

He further said that judges in Pakistan had been carrying on political movements in the past, and that the deposed chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry was not the first judge to participate in politics.

Everyone was aware that the lawyers’ movement was a political movement, the Daily Times quoted Zardari as saying while talking to BBC.

Zardari said that consensus was needed in parliament to enact legislation in this regard, as he has no power to restore the sacked CJ or any other judges.

However, he predicted that everyone would be happy with the constitutional package being prepared by the government, adding that it would strengthen the judiciary so that “they (judges) can do justice and not politics”. (ANI)