An historic wrong to the cause of justice in Pakistan has been corrected, but it is just that, for those who nurtured the hope that by striking down the notorious NRO the Supreme Court would be showing the door to President Zardari are obviously disappointed. The fact is that the immunity available to him as the head of state, under Article 248, did not come under discussion in the court.
The President of Pakistan enjoys immunity from "criminal proceedings" under Article 248 of the Constitution, but this immunity is there only as long as he holds that office. Is he also immune from criminal proceedings in case a foreign court finds him guilty, the question was neither raised before the court, nor replied?
With the NRO given the kiss of death, all the cases that were under adjudication but were closed in the wake of amnesty granted by former president General Musharraf, will get revived in the form and condition they were on October 5, 2007. This would be applicable to the president also; all his cases which were wrapped under the NRO will reopen to be decided in line with normal court procedure.
But that is only the legal aspect of the Supreme Court verdict. To it, there is also a moral dimension. By declaring the said law void ab initio, being ultra vires and violative of some eight Articles of the Constitution, the apex court tends to bring under public focus the moral dimension of President Zardari's legitimacy as Head of State. One of these is Article 62 (f), which lays down that a person shall not be qualified to be a member of the National Assembly unless he is "sagacious, righteous and non-profligate and honest and ameen".
Since a presidential candidate is required also to come up to the same standard of moral fitness, many would like to see President Zardari through the prism of this constitutional provision. But this challenge lies in the realm of the future, depending how the cases pending or revived against him are decided by the courts. The same should hold for other members of his team whose candidature may also become an issue of public debate.
As we discuss the expected fallout of the verdict of the Supreme Court on the NRO, a flash-back to the circumstances that gave birth to this law is in order. The only viable anti-thesis to General Musharraf's one-man rule was general elections. But all the political stakeholders could not be invited to the game because quite a few of them faced police and court cases, which inhibited them from returning home and undertaking election campaigning.
It was then that the NRO was conceived as an instrument to secure a compact for accommodation between the PPP and the GHQ under the garb of national reconciliation. Given that nations beset with similar conditions do resort to such acts of amnesty, it was not surprising that the principal political stakeholders, with the active blessings of the powers that be and our friends abroad, helped clinch a broad-based accord to open the road to a democratic future for Pakistan.
But the mischief lies in the details; the text of the NRO was so worded that the relief that was expected to unchain the democratic forces in the country became handy to thousands who had nothing to do with politics. As thousands charged with crimes ranging from murder to larceny to corruption were given the clean chit, it provoked a vehement public reaction against the NRO - so much so that it was disowned by the parliament, even when quite a few of its members are NRO beneficiaries.
Of course the scars the NRO leaves behind would take time to heal. So, first of all, it is important that President Zardari gets a clean chit from a competent court of law in the myriad cases against him - for his status as Head of State demands of him to be not only legally qualified for the country's highest office, but also morally acceptable to the people. And what he should be, some of the requirements are listed in Article 62.
At the same time, the ministers, advisors and officials who have lost cover provided by the erstwhile NRO should step down from their present positions and submit themselves before the law and go to the courts. As for the cases in Switzerland and elsewhere abroad, the Supreme Court's landmark verdict is bound to receive due respect and recognition and thus help revive those cases.
Isn't it diabolical that the then AG Malik Qayyum withdrew the cases in the foreign courts without lawful authority from the Pakistan government? Hopefully, with the Supreme Court's monitoring of the progress that these cases make in the courts on a regular basis, such pranksters would be put out of action. As to who is the net winner from this verdict it would be only fair that the credit should go to where it belongs and that is the Supreme Court.
As for the political players they kept changing their stance. The PPP moved it in the parliament but then withdrew and left it at the mercy of the court, where too the PPP's position was tentative. The PML-N's attitude, though more discreet, but was also essentially shifty, as it too is, although indirectly, one of the principal beneficiaries of the NRO, for Nawaz returned home only because Benazir came home.
But now that the Supreme Court has pronounced its judgement, there is the need to turn the page and move on, leaving behind the nightmarish landscape that obtained courtesy the NRO. Given that so many of these cases were politically motivated, there is no reason that those wrongly implicated will not get justice. We expect that those who had benefited from the NRO would submit themselves before the law and trust the courts would deliver justice.
Comments
Comments are closed.