Once more unto the breach?
We see a storm gathering yet again. But this much was predictable. With an elected prime minister of the republic going home, the matter of the letter to the Swiss authorities wasn’t going to be left as it were. There has to be a resolution, either way. The apex court summoning the new premier on the 27th of this month to explain his government’s “calculated defiance, dilatory tactics and excuses for resisting implementation (of the NRO verdict)” was but expected.
The government did file a review petition for the verdict of the 12th of July. A hearing of this petition by a five-member bench of the Supreme Court is going to take place on the 15th. There is much bated breath.
Theoretically, since none of the stimuli have changed, the outcome this time should also be the same, unless the government is pleading a different line of argument. Predicting a different judgment by the Supreme Court would be casting an aspersion on the judiciary. One implying that our honorable lordships are, God forbid, mercurial.
But that is just one school of thought. Another, quite different, states that the Supreme Court could still employ any one of the six options it had much earlier revealed it was considering. Two of them have the letter sent to the Swiss. One, by a commission constituted by the court, the other, by the NAB chairman as per the NAB Ordinance of ‘99.
The last one of the six options, the darling of the government, actually weighs judicial restraint. The court had said that given the fact that the trichotomy of powers were delicately poised, if the executive branch chose to be petulant, the court would rather exercise restraint than do something that would bring the system down; that they would rather let the people’s court decide the matter.
Well, the people’s court, if any of the recent by-polls are any indication, are the People’s court. And there may be reluctance on that front now.