The seven-member Supreme Court bench headed by Justice Nasir-ul-Mulk held Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani guilty of contempt of court, on Thursday, for his refusal to write to the Swiss authorities to reopen cases of corruption against President Asif Ali Zardari. This had been decreed in its judgment as far back as December 2009, declaring the National Reconciliation Ordinance as null and void ab initio. Mr Gilani was handed down a nominal sentence – ‘punishment’ till the rising of the court i.e. for 32 seconds – but the citing of Article 63-I (g) of the Constitution in its order purports to disqualify him, accordingly to most jurists' opinions, from remaining an MP, thus removing him as Prime Minister or for that matter barring him from holding any official assignment. The verdict pronounced that the Prime Minister had wilfully defied the court order on the NRO.
It was not unexpected that the PPP and its allied parties would defy and totally disregard the verdict. The hollow expression of respect for the judiciary by the Prime Minister and others in the party hierarchy had been well known. The PPP has the singular distinction of having a consistent record of ignoring judgments that implicated its members in wrongdoings. The announcement on Wednesday that Mr Gilani will chair a cabinet meeting soon after the court had pronounced was a clear signal that whatever the ruling, the coalition wanted him to stay in the job and, in all likelihood, it would protest and demonstrate against the court in public. Karachi, Larkana, Dadu and Multan witnessed PPP stalwarts leading demonstrations. But by and large, the people, including a vast number of PPP supporters, would pooh-pooh the very idea of disobeying the judicial verdicts.
For the learned judges, it was hard to let him off. Most analysts anticipating the reception of the judicial verdict in the civilised world and, indeed, democracies are honoured without a murmur were confident that in the face of the court's frustration at the Prime Minister’s open ridiculing its judgments, it would not be possible for him to go scot-free. Many from the public interviewed by the media and opposition parties, notably the PML-N and PTI, felt that Mr Gilani was morally and legally bound to tender his resignation, whereas the PPP felt there was no such impetus. There are numerous precedents in the world when heads of state and government after being convicted quietly quit their jobs. However, Pakistan Attorney General Irfan Qadir says, “If she (the National Assembly Speaker) thinks that the judgment is valid, she will forward it to the Election Commission, and she will act otherwise, if she thinks the judgment is invalid.” One would have wished that our leadership that has become a laughing stock of the world for its tactics to hold on to power despite widespread allegations of corruption and, now, court defiance, had spared the nation this humiliation.