Now to more urgent issues at hand, please
Good news for President Asif Ali Zardari. The Swiss authorities say that they cannot open a corruption case against him on legal grounds. Dragged through every kind of smear campaign, media trial and judicial cases, he is not only considered a jack of all trades but also a master of all. Innocent until proven guilty cannot fit on anyone else better than him right now, both literally and figuratively.
This being a unique case in Pakistan’s checkered judicial history, with one elected prime minister sent home packing under contempt charges and a relentless pursuit by the judiciary to bring down Mr Zaradri, who under Pakistani and known international laws enjoys immunity being the head of the state, the Swiss decision that the case had become time-barred under their law should put to rest what had become a perceived pinnacle of judiciary’s continuous assault on the government. When the NRO, an attempt at soothing political tensions, was promulgated by the Musharraf regime in 2007, cases against all politicians were withdrawn by the government, including this much hyped case against Zardari. But then the born-again superior judiciary of Pakistan decided to nullify the NRO and ordered to initiate cases against all the guilty ones.
The decision to reopen a graft case in Switzerland did not sit well with the government. It dilly-dallied to a point where the SC was forced to issue contempt notice, and later conviction, to the then Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani in June last year, making it the only example in Pakistan which resulted in the termination and disqualification of an elected representative of the parliament. The perception that two prime institutions of the country, the executive and the judiciary, were on a collision course was only put straight when a sudden change of heart, and of face, by the government led it to write a letter to the Swiss authorities asking them to reopen the graft case. But the whole exercise proved to be nothing but an exercise in futility, the one that led to uncertainty in the country’s political circles, a blowback to the supremacy of parliament, and wastage of resources and time. Furthermore, the single point focus by the judiciary to see it through gave rise to the perception of judicial bias, while the various delaying tactics used by the government made it look suspicious and guilty before the public. Now that the case has been decided, it is time the judiciary also took interest in thousands of other pending cases while the government, with no more Damocles’ sword on its head, did what it is supposed to do: deliver the fruits of democracy to the public.
