First day in court

Not too bad, as expected

Aitzaz Ahsan being in his element wouldn’t have sprung any surprises. After all, the senior lawyer is defending his third prime ministerial client. The first was his party chairperson and prime minister Benazir Bhutto. The second, more significantly, was former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, who would rather have this PPP stalwart defending him rather than any lawyer from his own party. And now it is the incumbent premier that he defends. Third time’s a charm?

His plea itself was reasonable. First, that this was an extremely important case and one that requires him to have more time to prepare his case. He asked for another date, which the court granted. Mr Ahsan also correctly pointed out how the current case is, primarily, about determining whether prime minister Yousaf Raza Gilani has been contemptuous of the court or not. This, he claimed, was not the case.

This is an argument that is to be based on the government’s position on the issue of presidential immunity, on which he said he is going to present his case in the next hearing.

The overall mood of the defence was conciliatory. This tone was also helped by the fact that the defendant himself was his usual, cool self. The distancing of perpetual gadfly Babar Awan, not only from the case – though there, the government didn’t have much of a choice since the court suspended his license – but also from his old portfolio at the law ministry would have also helped. Whether Mr Awan has been marginalised or is being stored temporarily in the arsenal is not known yet.

That cool, however, could not be displayed by all concerned. After the hearing, Mr. Ahsan could barely speak to the media due to the spirited slogans by lawyer-activists present at the court. The slogans, interestingly enough, were from the era of the lawyers’ movement, the same ones that once cheered on Mr Ahsan himself.

Even though a sitting prime minister appearing in court is nothing more than the rule of law, it is still indicative of maturity on the part of the ruling party. The move from a political defence to a legal defence would not only be more effective but would also be more difficult to argue away. These are heady times but hopefully uninteresting ones.