Those who had come to view Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani as a calm and cautious leader, who has grown in the job, must have revised that opinion after the reckless speech he delivered in the National Assembly on Monday evening.
He had come to command respect not for great leadership qualities, but for acting as a one-man damage control squad each time his party boss President Asif Ali Zardari, messed up things, whether it was backtracking on agreements he had signed with the PML-N leader Nawaz Sharif or his failure to have the so-called National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) approved by Parliament. After President Zardari's issuance last week of two controversial notifications related to the judges' appointments that had created fears of a clash between the executive and the judiciary, the Prime Minister again offered hope, saying there is no wrong that cannot be corrected. But, as it turned out, even as a conciliator he has his limitations.
Leader of the opposition Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, apparently, had no idea of the government's destructive inclinations when, speaking earlier, he said the government should withdraw the two presidential notifications or be ready to face public protests. "If you want to hear controversial things", responded the Prime Minister in a well-calculated move, "then I want to tell you that Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry and other judges, who were restored through my executive order, still need to be endorsed and validated by the Parliament." The next day, he offered the House some more weird thoughts, asking the Parliament to interpret the constitutional law concerning the judges' appointment, although it is common knowledge that in all functioning democracies, only the judiciary has the prerogative to interpret the constitutional law. The two speeches must have come as a disappointment to those who pinned high hopes on him to have a sobering effect on President Zardari's rancorous style of functioning.
Prime Minister Gilani is not very different from the kind of people that surround the PPP co-Chairman. He has much in common with them. Although, he has been trying to claim moral high ground, saying he is not an NRO beneficiary, a recent press report revealed that an Agricultural Development Bank loan worth Rs 470 million drawn in his wife's name, was settled, after declaration of wilful default, for a mere Rs 35 million.
Of course, ordinary citizens could never expect the banks to let them keep so much public money without invoking the relevant punitive laws that deal with default cases. The Prime Minister has also been holding out the assurance that the government would comply with the NRO verdict. Some of the affected ministers have even been appearing in courts, though they remain in office.
But there is no indication whatsoever that the government intends to reopen the Swiss bank cases involving the President, as directed by the court. In fact, it is unrealistic to expect that the government would get active to prove the cases of financial misconduct against its own ministers, especially the President.
It is hardly surprising if those involved are all set to use political power to frustrate the court's attempts to bring them to justice, even if that means destabilising the nascent democratic system. It is now clear that the Prime Minister willingly acted to advance a well thought-out strategy on the part of the President to try and get even with the judiciary for undoing the NRO and putting him in a difficult spot.
And also to fulfil his old ambition to pack the judiciary with his hand-picked judges so that he could have a trouble-free time in power as long as it lasts. It was no co-incident that immediately after his Prime Minister's incendiary remarks in the Assembly, President Zardari told a gathering of the PPP's parliamentary party members that the government will approach the Parliament to seek endorsement for the executive order that the Prime Minister had issued for the judges' restoration. The President and his men surely are not so naïve as to think they have a legal basis to revoke the judges' restoration order.
The facts are before us all. We know that declaring emergency the former military dictator, General Pervez Musharraf, issued PCO on November 3. 2007, sacking the superior judiciary en masse and putting the judges under house arrest. In its landmark judgement of July 31, a 14-member bench of the Supreme Court of Pakistan declared all actions under November 3 order except some specified events, such as President Zardari's oath of office, as illegal and unconstitutional.
Equally important, unlike the PCOs before it, this one was never indemnified by the Parliament, and hence has had no legal validity. All actions, including the judges' dismissal under that unlawful dispensation, therefore, remain illegal. If the Prime Minister now suggests the executive order for the judges' restoration requires endorsement by the Parliament, he is indirectly, saying what the military dictator did was legitimate and worthy of respect.
Gilani may have no qualms about taking such a position, after all he was also part of General Zia-ul-Haq's political construct. But the lawyers' community and civil society members, who made huge sacrifices for the restoration of an independent judiciary, are not going to let that happen.
Besides, if the example of NRO is anything to go by, the government will have to eat humble pie in case it decides to hold good on its threat to open the judges' restoration to question. In fact, the government's coalition partners, the MQM, ANP and JUI-F held a special meeting on Tuesday, following which they urged the President to withdraw the controversial notifications, and end confrontation with the judiciary.
Which is what prompted the Prime Minister to make an unsolicited appearance at a Supreme Court dinner the same evening, and invite Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry for a meeting the next afternoon. He told the media, "I have always maintained there is no misunderstanding between us, but when it did not work I had to come myself to prove this." Explanation: Now that intimidation and obfuscation have not worked, we are willing to do as required under the law, which gives the Chief Justice the last say on judicial appointments.
The President and the Prime Minister surely were aware all along of the repercussions of what they set out to do. But the problem of the NRO cases reopening wouldn't go away. The confrontation, it seems, was deliberately manufactured to create the impression that the judiciary is politicised and thus its insistence on compliance with the NRO verdict too is politically motivated.
That would help the President to act as a victim of conspiracies rather than a wrongdoer who needs to pay for his alleged excesses. Some though contend that this line of reasoning gives too much credit to the government leaders' thinking skills. And that it is simply a repeat performance of the now familiar advance and retreat pattern of behaviour, which has become a sort of a hallmark of this government. Whatever the truth, one only hopes that in the days to come, the Prime Minister will at least try and do one thing he is good at: maintaining harmonious relations with other players in the field.
saida_fazal@yahoo.com