Islamabad, January 30: Chief of Pakistan’s main opposition party and former prime minister Nawaz Sharif yesterday advised President Asif Ali Zardari to face courts in corruption cases despite his immunity from prosecution as head of state.
“If I were in his place I would have appeared before courts to clear my position instead of relying on constitutional exemption,” the top leader of the Pakistan Muslim League-N told reporters.
His comments coincided with remarks by Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani that President Zardari remained immune from any criminal proceedings.
Gilani, talking to the media, said the government was implementing the December 16 Supreme Court verdict, which quashed the Musharraf-era National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) or amnesty and revived corruption and criminal cases against thousands of accused. The top court’s judgment was on January 19.
The prime minister said some of his ministers against whom cases were reopened as a consequence of the NRO judgment were appearing before accountability courts, which according to him proved that the government had started implementing the verdict.
He said anyone in doubt about immunity to president under article 248 of the constitution could go to the court and the government would implement whatever interpretation was the judiciary gave.
In its landmark judgment, the Supreme Court had also asked the government to seek revival of money laundering cases in Switzerland that were shelved after the promulgation of the NRO by then military ruler Pervez Musharraf on October 5, 2007. Zardari was one of the main accused in these cases.
Gilani once again sought to allay concerns about possible confrontation between the judiciary and the executive if the NRO judgment was not implemented in full. He said nothing of the sort would happen.
A government petition seeking a review of the judgment is pending before the Supreme Court.
The immunity provision in Article 248 of the constitution says: “No criminal proceedings whatever shall be instituted or continued against the president or a governor in any court during his term of office.”
PML-N information secretary Ahsan Iqbal has said that only fresh criminal proceedings against the president could not be initiated under article 248. The immunity, he argued, was not applicable in cases which had been closed following the NRO.
Senator Tariq Azim, a leader of the former ruling party PML-Q, said the government was bound by the verdict to seek reopening of the cases in Swiss courts.
He said article 248 did not prevent any other state from taking action within its own jurisdiction. The cases in Swiss courts were shelved on the basis of a letter written by the attorney general.
——–Agencies