Pakistan: GOVERNMENT-JUDICIARY COLLISION INEVITABLE

The Supreme Court had once again issued notice to the Prime Minister of Pakistan to appear before the court and explain his conduct for not obeying the orders of the court to write a letter to Swiss authorities reopening the money laundering cases against Mr. Asif Ali Zardari, the President of Pakistan. It had generated a lot of heat in politics and streets of major cities of Pakistan expecting a head-on collision between the Government and the judiciary. It is known to all that the PPP-led coalitions Government will never write letter to humiliate its Party president who is also head of the State. Earlier, the Supreme Court sent home the former Prime Minister, Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani, on the same charge. The money laundering case was instituted in 1990s when Nawaz Sharif was the Prime Minister and the principal accused was the former Prime Minister Shaheed Benazir Bhutto. Several Governments, including the military Government of General Pervez Musharraf, made frantic efforts to get the political couple convicted and humiliated only and not to bring back the money from Swiss banks. They failed though they spent hundreds of millions of dollars on the visits to western countries by Generals and officials, including former NAB chief, on the pretext of the making investigations and collecting evidence against Shaheed Benazir Bhutto and Mr. Asif Ali Zardari. They wasted the public money in tens of millions of dollar and they went scot-free and failed to get the case decide in months or a year in any court of law. It was the fault of the Government of the day and its investigators and not those who are accused in this case. The Government had failed to collect evidence and prove its case for over a decade and now the Supreme Court is insisting to reopen the case and it made it a prestige point to insult and humiliate the PPP and its leader Asif Ali Zardari. It is the public perception that the charge is a tool to continue propaganda against Zardari and his PPP reminding the people that a corrupt Government is ruling this country. It is the opinion among the common people we daily meet who ventilate their views barring a number of lawyers who support the Court verdict for their professional reasons. Some of the PPP sympathizers claimed that the establishment wanted to try Shaheed Benazir Bhutto in her grave. The PPP supporters complained that the Supreme Court had taken up cases against the PPP, its leaders, ministers, officials it posted and spared rest of Pakistan for political reasons. Similar opinion was expressed by Asma Jehangir and Yasin Azad, the two SCBA Presidents. The people charged that the Supreme Court is implementing its anti-PPP agenda for political reasons in order to get the PPP Government toppled down and a new set up is established to run country’s affairs. There is no precedence in the whole world that a court had sent the sitting Prime Minister home simply on the issue of having a different perception about the case. They never said that they will not reopen the case. As long as Asif Zardari is President of Pakistan, the PPP will not insult its leader by implicating him cases in foreign countries. There were some criticism on the Supreme Court verdict internationally and in international media and important personalities, including a former chief of International Crisis Group and a former Judge of Indian Supreme Court rejected the verdict claiming that it was politically motivated and the court had crossed its permissible constitutional limits by dismissing a Prime Minister. However, the country is at the crossroads at the moment and it is to be seen whether the Supreme Court will send another Prime Minister home on the same issue of interpretation of law and create political instability to the advantage of the enemies of Pakistan. It will be a complete disaster and it amounts to winding up the concept of representative democracy as a strong and very influential section of the society resent the PPP rule to this date. The PPP got the right to fight back bitterly using its millions of workers in the streets. We see no chance of any walk over to this game. It must be settle amicably otherwise the nation will face the disaster of an unprecedented level.