Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gillani was disqualified by the Supreme
Court on 19th June 2012 on contempt of court. A three member jury
disqualified Gillani and gave out a statement that he was no longer eligible
for the post of Prime Minister and could not be a Member of Parliament for the
next five years. Under the constitution, anyone
convicted of defaming or ridiculing the judiciary is barred from being a Member
of Parliament. Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry said Gilani had effectively not
been prime minister since April 26 when he had been found guilty of contempt
for refusing to rewrite a letter to the Swiss authorities. Following the
verdict, all federal cabinet ministers stopped using the security protocol
assigned to them. National flags were also removed from their vehicles.
It all started in 2009, when the NRO case was declared
unconstitutional by the Supreme Court on the appeal of a member of PPP. Since
then the NRO case had been going on in the court and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza
Gillani was asked to rewrite a letter to the Swiss authorities to revive the
money laundering cases involving President Asif Ali Zardari. But the government
filed a review petition instead.
It was over the non implementation of the NRO order that brought
Gillani to the dock and disqualified him. In my opinion, if the member of PPP
hadn’t filed an appeal against the NRO case, this wouldn’t have happened and Gillani
would have completed his five years as the Prime Minister of Pakistan. In
hindsight, the appeal against the NRO case proved to be an appalling thing for
Gillani’s career. Also, if Gillani had supported
the constitution and the judiciary, and had written a letter to the Swiss, then
he wouldn’t have faced this disqualification.
Now whoever comes on the Prime Ministers chair will have the same
fate as Gillani because he too will have to rewrite a letter to the Swiss
otherwise he will also be disqualified by the Supreme Court.
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