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Prime Minister Gillani checkmated
February 17, 2012
“I have done no wrong” is what Pakistan’s longest serving Prime Minister Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani told the Supreme Court in response to a charge-sheet framed against him by a seven-member bench for not obeying the apex court’s order to write a letter to Swiss authorities for reopening of a money laundering case involving President Asif Ali Zardari and the slain Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.
The case is related to kickbacks to the tune of 60 million dollars allegedly received by President Zardari and his late wife from a Swiss company during her second stint 1993 to 1996.
Apparently, the case is very simple. The plundered money must be returned to the people of Pakistan. But the way the PPP government has politicized this one of the biggest financial scams, justice seems to be eclipsed by politics.
Public, undoubtedly, wants the accountability process to continue and the money stacked in Swiss banks return to the people of Pakistan; the PPP government, however, considers itself above the law.
President Zardari has already declared that reopening of Swiss cases would mean the trial of Benazir’s grave, which would not be accepted.
The PPP government has no legal excuse for not accepting the courts orders, but it is somehow successfully taking refuge behind emotional statements and its political allies in the parliament, which have lost all moral credibility by supporting the idea of “plunder and walk away”.
Families of various ministers, even the Prime Minister’s son, better known as the prince of Multan, are today well-known for corruption, misuse of authority, kidnapping, and other crimes. Every crime has an official sponsor at the highest level threatening the existence of the state.
“I have done no wrong” is a mantra that the people of Pakistan have been hearing for the last many decades. All the military dictators and corrupt politicians have been claiming that they are always right.
The problem is that no one is willing to prove their claims in the court of law in a transparent way. Pakistani politicians and establishment is expert in formulating laws that would protect their corruption and misdeeds.
The first elected PPP Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was sentenced to death by the Supreme Court in a murder case. But not only the general public, even his political opponents did not charge him with corruption. However, his successor, and the “heir” of Ghous Azam Abdul Qadir Shah Gilani, is trying hard to protect those, who have plundered the public money. He awaits his fate for defying the court’s repeated orders. "Willfully flouted, disregarded and disobeyed the direction given by this court," remarked Justice Nasir-ul-Mulk, the head of the seven-member bench. No Prime minister in the 60 years-plus history of Pakistan has ever been slapped with such serious charges.
Gillani and his government have lost the moral high ground and the political credibility to continue, an argument which the PPP will hardly agree with. President Zardari appears to be playing chess with the army and the judiciary and is treating serious national issues as a game. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto played a similar political game and the people lost half of the country.
Gillani is proving his loyalty to his boss rather than the constitution of Pakistan, a clear violation of his oath as a Prime minister.
Zardari’s apparent strategy to sacrifice his Prime Minister and save his own head from the accountability process will not protect him for long. With the end of his tenure, the Supreme Court will ultimately loop him in and help bring in the corruption money back to Pakistan.
The PPP might get a political martyr in the form of Gilani, which might give the party a slight edge in the next general elections, particularly in Upper Sindh. But it will set an example for next presidents and prime ministers to avoid flouting the courts’ orders.
There is no second word that not the parliament, but the constitution is supreme. The parliament has the authority to form or amend the constitution, but only the judiciary has the right to explain the constitution. If judiciary cannot adopt the responsibilities of the parliament, similarly, the parliament cannot dictate the Supreme Court in the name of supremacy.
What if tomorrow, a chief minister or a minister refuses to comply with the courts’ orders just because he feels or understands that the courts’ orders are extra constitutional?
One hopes that the sanity will prevail to avert any collision between the institutions, and the sane PPP leaders would advise the prime minister, an aspirant of political martyrdom, to bow to the court. He may have his opinion whether or not the apex court’s judgment is extra constitutional, but he has to comply with that in any case.
It is unfortunate that Gilani is willing to go to jail for Zardari, but not willing to obey the apex court and help enforce the rule of law.
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