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Pakistan: Raja’s U-turn for breather in troubles with Zardari’s money

It was an unexpected turn to Pakistan Supreme Court’s three year quest for probity in public life. Nevertheless, it is a welcome U-turn. Whether Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf is genuinely interested to end the judiciary-executive clash on the implementation of NRO judgement or whether he doesn’t want to go down the path chosen by his predecessor, Syed Yousaf Reza Gilani, he deserves praise. By his action he has lowered the temperature. Whether it will be possible to get to the bottom of the corruption cases against President Asif Ali Zardari is a different matter altogether.

“After looking into the complexities of the issue, I have instructed the law minister that the letter written by Malik Qayyum, former attorney general (to the Swiss authorities), which the court had termed unauthorised and illegal in its judgement, would be withdrawn,” Raja said on Tuesday.  The 2007 letter has asked the Swiss to stop probe into money laundering cases against Zardari.  And that letter was prompted by the ‘reprieve’ then President General Musharraf had granted to Benazir Bhutto, Zardari and a host of other PPP leaders from several court cases.

Raja wanted a concession in return for his U-turn, and that was exemption from personal appearances in the court whenever the case was heard. The Judges granted his wish and asked the law minister to furnish the draft of the letter on September 25.

The case has generated much interest at home and abroad. There have been comments even by those who stood by the judiciary in its darkest hour that some moderation is the need of the hour .CJP Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry was going a little too far in his crusade against the political system, according to this school since he has been trying to sweep the stables from Quetta to Peshawar. It is a monumental effort;

Though people have come to turn to the judiciary as their last hope, his campaign has had an unsettling effect on the administration –civil, police and military. Viewed against this backdrop, the prime minister’s offer is the proverbial middle path.

Some prompting from the five-member bench, headed by Justice Asif Saeed Khan Khosa, which was hearing the case, contributed to the development. On August 27, the bench asked Raja to authorise either Law Minister Farooq H Naek or the attorney general to resolve the matter. This is what he has done now, to ‘address the concerns of federation’ and to ‘uphold dignity of the judiciary’. He said the concerns were not about the person of Asif Zardari but about the office of the President.

The court will make its next move after it sees the letter before it was sent to the Swiss. “It is necessary we should be fully satisfied that the requirement of our order is fully met,” Justice Khosa told Raja. The operative word is satisfaction. It means the court doesn’t want dictate the letter itself but expects the executive to do its job with proper respect and care.

Yousaf Reza Gilani could have saved his job had he adopted a conciliatory tone. Instead he went on questioning the bench and paid the price. He was convicted of contempt of court and disqualified as a law maker in June.  

As many analysts have said, mere sending a request to the Swiss to hear the Zardari cases ipsofacto doesn’t mean the probe into the fifteen year old case begins a fresh anytime soon. That is a call the Swiss authorities have to take subject to their local laws. They can even push the ball back into Pakistan court by calling for substantive new evidence.

The gravity of the case is this: the Supreme Court of Pakistan is facilitating the trail of the country’s president in a foreign country for some thing he did before he became the head of the country. Under international law and the law of the land in Pakistan itself, the president enjoys immunity from courts for his actions as head of the country. The immunity is valid during the term of office under international, Swiss and Pakistani laws.

Now by his actions, the Pakistan CJP has created an unprecedented situation – of prosecution of sitting president in a foreign country.  For the present though, a show down in Islamabad has averted between the executive, which is in election mode, and the judiciary which is on an accountability drive.

-yamaaraar

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