Pakistan's Supreme Court on Friday struck
down a recently passed law to protect the prime minister from being
charged with contempt of court and ousted from office, like his
predecessor, for refusing to reopen an old corruption case against the
president.
The ruling comes less than a
week before the deadline set by the court for the current premier, Raja
Pervaiz Ashraf, to tell the judges whether he will obey their order to
write a letter to Swiss authorities asking them to reopen the graft
case.
The government and court
have been locked in conflict over the issue since the beginning of the
year, stoking political instability that has distracted from what many
in the country see as more pressing problems, such as the struggling
economy and a Taliban insurgency.
The court could repeatedly disqualify prime ministers over the issue, undermining the government and forcing an early national.
Parliament passed the new
law in early July after former Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani was
convicted of contempt and forced to step down. The law provided greater
protection to the prime minister and other senior government officials
against contempt charges.
The court struck down the
law because it violated the basic principle of equality among the
country's citizens, said Zafr Ullah, a lawyer who challenged the law.
The government has refused
to reopen the corruption case against Zardari, saying he enjoys immunity
from prosecution while in office. His supporters have accused the court
of relentlessly pursuing the matter because of bad blood between Chief
Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry and the president.
The new prime minister,
Ashraf, has also indicated he has no plans to write the letter to Swiss
authorities. If the court convicts him of contempt and orders his
removal from office, the government would be forced to once again seek
support in parliament to elect a new premier or call early national
elections.
It's unclear which option
the government would choose. The ruling Pakistan People's Party has been
keen on holding elections as scheduled in early 2013 because it could
then boast being the first civilian government to serve a full five-year
term in the country's 65-year history. Past governments have been
toppled by the direct or indirect intervention of the army, often with
the help if the judiciary.
The case against Zardari
relates to kickbacks he and his late wife, former Prime Minister Benazir
Bhutto, allegedly received from Swiss companies when Bhutto was in
power in the 1990s. They were found guilty in absentia in a Swiss court
in 2003.
Zardari appealed, but Swiss
prosecutors dropped the case after the Pakistani parliament passed an
ordinance giving the president and others immunity from old corruption
cases that many agreed were politically motivated.
The measure was criticized
by many in Pakistan, who saw it as an attempt to subvert the law. The
Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional in 2009 and ordered the
government to write to Swiss authorities requesting they reopen the
case.
A Swiss prosecutor told the
media last year that Geneva couldn't bring proceedings against Zardari
because he has immunity as a head of state.
The Supreme Court has also
said it would respect the president's immunity, but it still wants the
government to write the letter to the Swiss and is frustrated the
government has long disobeyed its orders to do so.
The court has ordered the government to declare whether it will write the letter by Aug. 8.
