News
Monday, February 13, 2012
Supreme Court to seal fate of PPP govt todayBy Muhammad Akram
LAHORE: Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani will appear before the Supreme Court today (Monday) to face contempt of court charges that could decide his political fate and that of the country as an unfavorable court order would push the beleaguered PPP government, which has its eyes on the Senate elections slated for March 2, in the dock.
The fate of the prime minister had actually been sealed by the eight-member bench of the Supreme Court headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry last week when the court rejected his intra-court appeal and upheld the order of a seven-member bench to frame contempt of court charges against him.
The prime minister has on successive hearings on the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) implementation cases refused to write to the Swiss authorities as directed by a 17-member bench in 2009, pertaining to the opening of money-laundering cases against President Asif Zaradri, saying the office of the president enjoys constitutional immunity.
Gilani would become the first chief executive of the country who appeared before the Supreme Court on contempt of court charges twice and would also face the framing of charges as in previous instances a prime minister did face contempt of court charges but court desisted from framing charges against him.
The prime minister personally appeared in the court when it took up the contempt case on January 19, and said that the government could not reopen the cases against the president because he enjoyed complete immunity in Pakistan and abroad.
Refusing to buy his arguments, the court told Gilani that he had no option but to write to the Swiss authorities to revive graft cases against Zardari as no one was above the law.
The sources in the ruling Pakistan People's Party told Daily Times that the party government was most likely to stick to its position when the prime minister appears in the court again today (Monday). His recent public appearances and media talks also suggest that Gilani and his party were ready to face the consequences of the defiance to the apex court orders.
If convicted, Gilani could be imprisoned for six months and removed from the office after being disqualified from holding a public office for five years.
The PPP sources said in case the PM was convicted, President Zaradri would immediately pardon him under presidential powers. However, he would cease to hold the office since he would be a convicted person who would stand disqualified to hold a public office for five years.
The sources said the PPP would continue to stick to this position on court’s order for writing a letter to Swiss authorities believing that any action on the cases in Switzerland could give the Supreme Court an opportunity to interpret the constitutional provision related to presidential immunity.
The PPP government has been desisting from raising the point of constitutional immunity to the president fearing that a ‘hostile’ judiciary would instantly take the matter in its hands and strike down this presidential power taking into account the precedents available in the Islamic history at the cost of ignoring the and nullifying the democratic spirit in the 1973 constitution.
The sources said the top PPP leadership was of the considered view that if a letter was written to the Swiss authorities to reopen cases against the president, the court would take cognisance of the matter and could strike down the constitutional immunity on the touchstone of NRO verdict in 2009, which had largely been termed right-wing judgement by the petitioner, Dr Mubashar Hasan.
The PPP sources said, “What suits the party and its government is to replace Prime Minister Gilani with another party MP if the apex court decides against him, a possibility considered by the top party leaders and legal hawks.”
About the political consequences for the party, insiders said that the PPP would get a electoral boost since it would be in a position to exploit the verdict against a democratically elected prime minister by a judiciary which never acted against military dictators.
The sources said, “Everybody in the country including the political foes of the PPP believe that courts have a very low record of acting against military dictators and their political cohorts while the PPP had remained a soft target of both the judiciary and the security establishment.
The PPP would be eyeing the resumption of proceeding in Asghar Khan case after 16 years by the same judiciary and if a fair trial was allowed the PPP’s stand as a victim of the judiciary and establishment would stand vindicated, hence an added impetus to its political fortunes when general elections are just round the corner.
The party sources said that the PPP would take the case of conviction of a democratically elected prime minister to the court of people to seek a favourable political verdict, an option it considers more important than a judicial verdict by a judiciary largely been dubbed as having double standards since its restoration on the orders of a prime minister who not just ordered the release of the detained judges before taking oath to the office but signed the summary of their subsequent restoration to the bench.
A member of the Gilani cabinet said, “The top party leadership is convinced of the fact that Gilani's sacrifice will give a boost to the party and help it lay a strong launch pad for the next election.”
In an indication of the thinking within the PPP, Gilani told a public meeting in Jaranwala on Saturday that now the party's leaders, and not the workers, would make sacrifices.
The knowledgeable political observers believe that the quest for taking the NRO verdict to its logical conclusion and the insistence on recording Mansoor Ijaz’s evidence in memo case even from abroad indicate that the ultimate target is to deny the PPP a majority in the Senate.
The observers said the urgency on the part of the judiciary is to reach to the bottom of the two cases, come what may, and is an attempt to seal the fate of the PPP government before Senate election only at two weeks away from now.
The judiciary has never shown such haste on matters which involved protection of human life as was evident from the missing persons case, which at one point of time was literally shelved by handing over the matter to a toothless judicial commission.
The lackluster report by a judicial commission on journalist Saleem Shahzad’s murder and directionless proceedings by the Abbottabad Commission are examples, which the observers quoted as miscarriage of justice by the same judiciary, which was not ready to give political breather to a government, which has already agreed to hold general election in October this year.
The observers feared that the tumultuous events that would be unleashed following a court verdict would lead to realignment among the political parties on holding of the Senate elections. Furthermore, the observers said, the judiciary was all ears to petitions which is calling in question the holding of by-elections and the Senate elections, a bad omen to the polity in general and the PPP in particular since it might turn out to be one of the targets of the establishment in forthcoming general elections.
The observers say that Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman, one of the most astute politicians who had lately been considered on the wrong side of the establishment, had already predicted that next general elections would decide the fate of the country.
The maulana has already been on a spree to expose the role of the establishment in the politics and its backing of Imran Khan-led Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf.
The observers believe the apex court’s decision of handing down an unfavourable judgement against a unanimously elected prime minister would further muddy the body politics and its claim of showing restrain for a functioning democracy would be badly exposed.
They think the judiciary, the security establishment and its sponsored political parties, including the conglomerate of jihadi and defunct religious organisation, are eyeing fortunes that exist only in a murkier political environment. A murky political situation is possible only with sealing the fate of an elected government with the help of the judiciary as all other forums, parliament and the street agitations have already been exhausted and proved in vein, the observers said.
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk