Atetaz Ahsan on TV (Pakistan tonight with Fahad) was saying that he is going to contest PM contempt of court case arguing that contempt was not intentional as PM was of impression that President had immunity (rightly or wrongly) and that is why he stopped law department from writing letter to Swiss court.
This argument is preposterous as there is no reason to believe Gillani was illiterate and all his advisers were illiterate that he could not know the difference between civil cases, criminal cases, and immunity to President only in criminal cases (actually, even there the immunity is not complete, because human rights of equality and all Islamic laws are above that immunity, and thus President is not immune for personal crimes against other citizen … thus it is court that could only decide what immunity against criminal cases are applicable).
Plus even if PM had no understanding, still contempt happened due to what he was thinking about SC judges that they were giving him unconstitutional order to follow… as even thinking like that and then not following the order is itself contempt of court.
Actually Atetaz Ahsan argument is full of flaws. One cannot bring misunderstanding or personal believe as justification for doing crime or not following court orders. For instance, a person cannot rape a girl misunderstanding her to be his wife then asking court to consider that misunderstanding as his excuse.
Similarly, when a court orders someone to be put in prison, a policeman cannot use his understanding or believe that the person has immunity from prison so let the person stay free, and then use that understanding or believe as his defence of not following court orders.
Re: Atetaz Ahsan and his intended line of PM defence:
Well opening of Zardari's cases in Switzerland is not the first case, there have been many instances in the past where the government has played their role in defying justice to the criminals (Moonis Illahi) and reinstating NRO hit personnel in defiance/violation of SC orders.
Re: Atetaz Ahsan and his intended line of PM defence:
You are right. It seems government want to rule ... err... loot Pakistan in madar-pidar-Azad style.
Only thing going with government is dishonesty, corruption, and bias of Supreme Court judges and their judgments. It seems Supreme Court judges under the leadership of Iftikhar Chaudhari are paid employees of Nawaz Shareef and thus they are letting them (PMLN) get away with corruption, loot, plunder, murder, and all sort of mal-practices while picking up every opportunity to judicially punish PPP (taking complains from everywhere, opening cases whenever possible, and also starting cases using suo-motu actions).
PPP response to Supreme Court is that they are giving indirect message to SC, that is ‘do whatever you want and give whatever judgments you like, we won’t implement anything’. This action could have cost PPP a lot in popularity, but PPP is managing to gain popularity and also getting sympathy from masses (especially in Pakistan outside North Punjab) as masses are feeling that Supreme Court is bias, showing unfairness with PPP but letting PMLN get away with all mal-practices.
Re: Atetaz Ahsan and his intended line of PM defence:
^ during this tenure PMLN govt of Punjab hasn’t done that much corruption, you can call it incompetent at the most. On the other side look at the federal government fertilizer scam, LPG scam, Hajj scam, RPP scam, Railways, PIA and so on.
Its heartening to see that the SC is opening Asghar khan’s petition against the ISI role in propping up NS:
Re: Atetaz Ahsan and his intended line of PM defence:
But SC has released all assets NAB confiscated from Nawaz and also upturned Nawaz terrorism convictions.
One should realise that Nawaz had no right to dismiss Army Chief the way he did, trying to sack army chief without notice or reason while he was returning home from abroad. No government officer (leave army chief), not even peon can be dismissed without notice and reason. Worse is to dismiss army chief couple of days after promotion (Musharraf was made ‘Joint Chief of Staff’ couple of days before leaving for Sri-Lanka) and especially when the person is returning home from foreign official visit. Nawaz action was terrorist action and SC should not have overturned his conviction as Nawaz was convicted on basis of same laws Pakistan terrorist courts convicted many and also hanged many (laws was brought by Nawaz himself ... and according to that law Nawaz should have got hanged, but probably Musharraf did not wanted him to get hanged).
Presently, Punjab government is running on stay order from court as without stay order Shahbaz loses his seat and Punjab assembly would have collapsed.
Anyhow, it is nice that CJ has initiated one case that can go against Nawaz. Dekhtay hain, what comes with time and how SC shows even handedness?
I have feeling that Iftikhar Chaudhry must be thinking that Chaudhry Atetaz lost his position with PPP due to him, so it is possible that once Atetaz Ahsan has been given some position in PPP Iftikhar may change a bit (and so would SC). They both worked as close team and it is possible that Iftikhar moving against PPP was ploy that Iftikhar was using to make PPP compromise with Atetaz. If Zardari had given Atetaz some ministry in 2008 (when they came into power) then it is possible IC (and hence SC) would have been much close to PPP and Zardari, keeping blind eye to whatever they would have done.
Re: Atetaz Ahsan and his intended line of PM defence:
Atetaz Ahsan is saying things that is contempt of court, as whatever he is saying means:
1: Supreme court do not know or understand constitution when they asked government to write letter to Swiss court (as SC did not knew that President has immunity).
2: Supreme court do not know what immunity to President in constitution means ... something parliamentarians know better and thus Prime Minister is right in not writing letter to supreme court as President has immunity ... so now supreme court judges should learn constitution or maybe learn language constitution is written.
3: Atetaz Ahsan also seems to implying that Supreme Court judges have no right to interpret constitution as that right belongs to anyone who should act according to their understanding of constitution ... what Prime Minister did.
