Indeed the Gilani government's law ministry would go down in history as a past master at the art of legal trickery. You mention a legal problem confronting the government and it would come up with a 'solution' - invariably to the great satisfaction of the rulers - albeit temporarily - and to the utter surprise of the legal fraternity and the immense pain of civil society.
One such piece of this art is the recently promulgated presidential ordinance amending the National Accountability Bureau law, which essentially shifts the NAB chairman's judicial powers of transferring any corruption case from an accountability court to any of such new courts to the law ministry, presently headed by Babar Awan.
The move tends to seriously undermine the Bureau's autonomy, which is so much required for its independent and impartial working, particularly in the present situation where a number of high-ranking officials including President Zardari and some ministers are facing corruption cases in the wake of the revocation of the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO). Babar Awan's move is clearly motivated with mala fide intentions; in line the government's foot-dragging on legislation of a new accountability law that rests with the parliament for a year or so.
These mala fide intentions are also reflected from the way the NAB Amendment Ordinance 2010 has been conceived and piloted in the parliament. That Prime Minister Gilani was not in the picture and was reportedly in "shock" when he got the news that the law minister had tabled the said ordinance in the Senate just a few minutes before the house was to be prorogued sine die.
That he did not know anything about the ordinance, is hard to believe. May be he signed the summary without reading its contents, an argument his aides often make to explain the recurrent dissonance that characterises their boss's working. But the fact remains that the prime minister has not yet disowned the said Ordinance and may not do so, his empowerment under the 18th Amendment notwithstanding. What else can be presented as an instance to uphold the public perception that 'bad governance' is the hallmark of Prime Minister Gilani's government?
The government move to defang the National Accountability Bureau has two important aspects. One, the said ordinance runs afoul of the Constitution and the basic principles of law as it diminishes his stature and strength as the NAB chairman, who is supposed to be a judge and a czar fully empowered to lay his hands on the accused howsoever high and mighty. And as against it, the amended NAB law opens to the scope and possibility that the government would influence the outcome of cases by transferring them to courts of its liking.
Two, the surreptitious manner in which the ordinance was notified and laid before the parliament is nothing short of the full display of crass chicanery now abounding in the law ministry. One may ask why it was not made public the day it was signed by the president, and why did it take a good two weeks to become public?
Is it back-dated, one may ask. As a matter of constitutional requirement, the ordinance should have been conceived and drafted by the law ministry, endorsed by the cabinet and sent by the prime minister to the president with advice to sign it. But all this process seems to have been short-circuited.
Being specific to the ongoing corruption cases, reopened consequent to the demise of the notorious NRO, and its promulgation shrouded in mystery, the said ordinance, expectedly, has been challenged in the Supreme Court. Given that PPP Senator Mian Raza Rabbani had joined the Opposition's walkout, protesting the manipulative manner it was tabled in the Senate last week and the main Opposition party PML-N's walkout from the National Assembly, as the conspicuously quiet Prime Minister watched, one may hope that the government would revisit the justification for this amendment. It is too illegal and likely to be thrown out by the court at the very first hearing. However, its immediate withdrawal may somewhat help Prime Minister Gilani retrieve his image as an effective chief executive - if it means hurting some egos.