Presidential Immunity

[yazdi]

Re: Presidential Immunity

@Shamraz_Khan

yazid:

1. The spirit of Islam is a very vague term. Its means different things to different people. There is no uniformed “spirit of Islam” understood by everyone. In legal system you must have defined terminology so there is no room for confusion.

2. Judicially judges do not have the power to override executive decisions unless they are unconstitutional.

3. You can’t argue about Islam justice using precedents set by secular western courts.

Also, you have to understand that there is difference between civil, criminal and constitutional aspects of law. For example, Paula Jones was suing Clinton for sexual harassment in a civil matter, and the court ruled that he does not have immunity (he was not being prosecuted in criminal matter where state is usually the prosecutor).

@Shamraz

Being a lawyer (and I am sure a good one) I have no doubt in my mind that your understanding of law is much better than mine. I am a bit confused and I have a very basic concept to understand the judicial matters. The bottom line is that judicial matters must follow a certain logic and justice must be seen as done. Please try to clarify these points.

1. You are right that state prosecutes a lot of cases against certain criminals who commit crimes against people at large. Rehman Malik, our interior minister who heads our State investigation agency working under him said in a public statement that he has strong evidence against Nawaz Sharif which are enough to disqualify him. Now if Mr. Malik has such evidence is it his personal property. My understanding is that this evidence is a property of the people of Pakistan against whom these crimes are allegedly committed. This statement by Rehman Malik is for me is a confessional statement for facilitating the crime by not presenting these evidence in a court of law and using these evidence may be to negotiate some benefits for their government. Why can’t the court take action if such an evident act of omission confessed by a government functionary taking place.

2. President in our country is assuming immunity for his personal crimes.. money laundering at least which was proven by the presence of funds in Switzerland where there was no apparent source of income. People of Pakistan suspect this money belongs to them and has been stashed in Swiss banks by misappropriating the power which came with a public office. State of Pakistan was prosecuting these personal crimes committed by by Benazir And Zardari. These cases were withdrawn due to an already defunct piece of legislation which was declared illegal by the SC ab initio.. Court ordered a request letter written by the State of Pakistan to Swiss authorities to reopen the criminal cases against an individual who happens to be the President of Pakistan. Our government representing the State of Pakistan is defying the court order with an excuse which was publicly announced that President has immunity although this excuse was never presented before the court.

Now in this case the SC is the right body to decide if the president has immunity in these specific criminal cases.. it’s not the parliament. Just like US courts decided that Clinton does not have immunity in those specific criminal charges..

Regarding the Islamic angle.. we also have Justice Ramday’s remarks on record when such immunity was claimed for President Musharraf.. so it is not totally irrelevant according to our constitution… thus the argument of Faroogh Naseem.. an imminent pakistani lawyer of repute. Lex Luther in his post has inserted the link for the arguments which were presented at that time by Aitezaz Ahsan/Hamid Khan who were opposing the Presidential immunity at that time..