ISLAMABAD: Legal wizard Asma Jahangir has sounded alarm bells over rumours that the just retired chief justice of Pakistan, Tassadug Hussain Jillani, could be appointed chief election commissioner (CEC).

The move will bring the judiciary`s credibility into question, she cautioned.

`I hope the rumours doing rounds these days that former chief justice Tassadug Jillani may become next CEC will prove to be false,` she said while talking to reporters at the Supreme Court on Monday.

`A judge will never endanger the reputation of an institution from where he has earned respect,` the former president of the Supreme Court Bar Association said.

She recalled a similar episode when another former chief justice (Justice Irshad Hasan Khan) had been appointed CEC soon after his retire-ment and that had `harmed the institution of judiciary` `There should be a difference between the former chief justice (Justice Irshad) and (retired) Justice Jillani,` she insisted.

Asma Jahangir deplored the role of politicians who, she said, `sought our (lawyers and civil society`s) help for the cause of democracy (when confronting dictatorship), but themselves harmed the very concept of democracy (after coming to power).

She said the appointment of a retired chief justice to a coveted post lil(e that of CEC would send a wrong message.

`They (the politicians) should realise what message they are giving by offering the coveted post of the CEC to a recently-retired chief justice, she said, advising the rulers to `strengthen the judiciary instead of making it controversial`.

The criteria for the appointment as CEC should be transparency and impartiality, Ms Jahangir insisted.