A point for Parliament's consideration

            After declaring the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) void ab initio by the Supreme Court of Pakistan, the existence of many persons and their purported immunity under the Constitution of the Country has adopted a new shape of discussion.

            The sagacity and legal mentality of the Parliament is beyond doubt when it scrupulously turned down the NRO and did not made it a permanent law of the Country because it was against the whole Constitution and was had peculiar nature but now the Parliament should decide the future existence and immunity of the person(s) to whom it has elected with the majority of votes and whose nomination papers remained immune from every objection due to NRO. It means that NRO paved his/their way to the respective places.

            It is a strange situation that on one side the Parliament disowned the NRO, on the other side the Supreme Court declared it null and void from the very beginning in light of Constitutional Articles then what is the legality of the person(s) who has/have come to their respective offices without any resistance under the law which was rejected by two pillars of the State?

            In my view, Constitution shall support and protect only that/those person(s) who acquire office(s) under valid law. It is very strange situation on the part of the Parliament and four Provincial Assemblies to allow and elect a person under a law which they themselves subsequently disowned when the law was formally kept before the Parliament to convert the temporary legislation into a permanent Act of the Parliament and also when the four Provincial Governments were in the asked in the Supreme Court whether they wish to defend the law before the Supreme Court? They answered in the negative before the Supreme Court and allowed the Supreme Court to decide the fate of this discriminatory law.

            This duplicity in the character and performance is unwarranted even in a layman in the street. This is a fact that the President Asif Ali Zardari has been elected democratically according to the Constitution by the elected representatives of the Country in a prescribed manner but it is also a fact that prior to coming to the office of the President, he was facing charges in various Courts not only in this Country but also abroad and in which formal charge-sheets had been framed and proceedings held for a long time and all of a sudden an Ordinance was promulgated for him and others mostly related to one Province of Sindh. Every proceeding, charge, conviction etc was removed from them by this notorious law which the former President had issued after secret understanding (later on revealed).

            How one can guess or establish an opinion by the stretch of his imagination that Constitution shall support a person who has come to the office having immunity, by dint of a law which the Constitution itself totally negated and rejected.

            The job of the Judiciary is to determine that to which extent the enacted law has conformity with the Constitution. The 287 pages Judgment has not only declared the NRO against the Constitution but also declared it against the spirit of Islamic Law.

            As a student of Law and Political Science I want clarity in conduct and laws of the enacting authority. Rejection of a temporary law and acceptance of a person(s) benefited by this rejected and undefended law is beyond my comprehension. It is nothing but the creation of more intricate and perplexing conditions for the students of law and politics.

            Such kind of situation might have faced a person in the past history in our area, when that person was asked by someone “whether Pir Baba (a saint) is big (great) or the mountain in his name?” The person answered, “Almighty God put you in such predicament in which you have put me”. If the person had answered in favour of Pir Baba then the mountain was too big to be ignored. If the person had answered in favour of the mountain then it was blasphemy for him to relegate Pir Baba to nonentity.

            As a student of Politics, I think that the Government is also between the devil and the deep sea. Actually PPP leaders used the power of a Military President in coming to Pakistan, quashing all charges, participation in General Elections without having agony of going through the ordeals of facing charges during acceptance of nomination papers etc. The concept of ‘National Reconciliation’ has been vehemently repelled by the Supreme Court and declared it a ‘Reconciliation’ of two persons for their own future benefits. The Supreme Court has impliedly given message to the learned class of the Country by this explanation that both a Military leader and PPP deceased leader searched only their own benefit but hypocritically borrowed the concept of ‘National Reconciliation’ from South Africa just to delude the learned class of the Country. The stalwarts of PPP consider this self-fish of their leaders as a general blessing which resulted in the General Election. If the PPP had elected any other member of the party as President then it was easy to remove him for the supremacy of the Constitution but the tough time is that the President is also the Head of the Party. If they removed him it will be putting axe on their legs. If they do not, it will also create problems for the PPP because it is also contradiction in character that a person be the President of a Country and simultaneously face the charges inside and outside the Country and charges of the nature which do not belong to his tenure of the office but belong to a time when he was only son of Mr. Hakim Ali Zardari and husband of a Prime Minister of Pakistan. In most of the civilized nations when the head of State or Government or any Minister is accused of any misconduct, he resigns for the sake of fair conduct of enquiry but here in my Country everything has been reversed and when the PPP nominated and elected him, the law under which he had got innocence had been challenged in the Supreme Court. The PPP leadership knew this fact that it would create problems if the NRO was declared unlawful but still kept the wheel rolling that Article 248 would come to his rescue. It is the job of the Opposition to go to the Court for the interpretation that whether the immunity extends to a person who had been accused prior to his election or who might have made his way under a law which is subsequently declared void ab initio?

            When a University is declared bogus and illegal or a person knows that the University is bogus or illegal, can get employment by dint of the degree being issued by this bogus and illegal University. If a person has already got employment by dint of a degree which is issued by a University which is already under trial for being bogus and illegal then whether such employee would be retained in the Service by the Government of Pakistan? For the sake of students of law, please clarify the fogged atmosphere.

Manzoor Ahmad Yousafzai

Dated: Friday, 29 January 2010.