As the Supreme Court resumes hearing in the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) verdict implementation case today (Thursday) and expects the new prime minister to clarify his stance on writing the contentious letter to Swiss authorities for reopening the graft cases against the president, the new prime minister is likely to tell the SC that “he is in no position to write the letter as yet and would give a reply after consulting with his cabinet members”. The government made this decision during a meeting of the federal cabinet on Wednesday.
Sources told Pakistan Today that after the cabinet discussed the agenda items, including load shedding and giving its approval to an increase in non-Muslims’ seats in the national and provincial assemblies, the prime minister asked all staff, except cabinet secretary Nargis Sethi, to leave the hall. The sources said that the cabinet members then deliberated on the response the prime minister should give to the SC vis-à-vis the letter. They said that the cabinet decided that the PM would tell the SC that he was not in a position to take a decision on the letter issue on his own and would give a reply after consulting with his cabinet members, and he would soon call a special meeting in this regard.
Although the coalition partners of the government reiterated their support to the Pakistan People’s Party’s stance on the letter issue, sources said that the party’s allies were finding themselves between a rock and a hard place as none of them wanted to get involved in any friction between the two institutions.
Nonetheless, the stage is set for another confrontation between the government and the SC. The government has already completed its preparations to shield the prime minister by getting a new contempt of court law passed from the National Assembly and Senate, which is now waiting to be signed by the president for its enactment.
Per the new law, the prime minister and members of parliament would not be disqualified if found guilty of defaming and ridiculing the apex court, while a convict of contempt charges would simply have to file an appeal to get the punishment suspended.
The attorney general will also be submitting a report in the court pertaining to the appointment of Adnan Khawaja as the OGDCL chief.
The NRO implementation case has been a bone of contention between the government and the judiciary ever since the SC ruled on December 16, 2009 that NRO was illegal and stood null and void.
The SC then ordered former prime minister Yousaf Raza Gilani to take action against all beneficiaries of NRO, including Asif Ali Zardari, and asked Gilani to write a letter to the Swiss government to reopen graft cases against the president.
However, the PPP kept delaying the implementation on the SC verdict and deployed one tactic after the other to deny the apex court.
Eventually, the SC showed Gilani the door after convicting him of committing contempt of court.
Here is a perfect example of the incompetency of the ppp members. The stupid guy is the prime minister and he cannot make the decision on his own. He has to have cabinet members tell him what to do. I wonder if they also tell him when to go to the bathroom and when to screw his wife 🙂
judiciary should have no mercy and give inordinate time to let this evil coalition cartel of rulers manipulate delay and delay to avoid writing NRO letter.the judiciary should not give one moment to dash the hope of the evil manipulations ruining our country and strike the heavy hammer on contempt of court and dual function of president who is manipulating politics on minute to minute basis on national expense
Have patients – why everyone is in so hurry…..to conclude the system.
The chief justice is himself a crook. He eats money through his son. What justice is he dispensing.
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