Pakistan’s top court has disqualified Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani from holding office, two months after convicting him of contempt of court.
The Supreme Court ruled he had “ceased to be the prime minister of Pakistan”.
In April, the Supreme Court convicted Mr Gilani of failing to pursue corruption charges against President Asif Ali Zardari.
The legal case is part of a bitter feud between Pakistan’s civilian government and the judiciary.
In April, Mr Gilani was given only a token sentence and spared a jail term.
Tuesday’s court ruling disqualified him from office and from parliament.
“Since no appeal was filed [against the 26 April conviction]… therefore Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani stands disqualified as a member of the Majlis-e-Shoora [parliament],” Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry told a packed courtroom.
He added: “He has also ceased to be the prime minister of Pakistan… the office of the prime minister stands vacant.”
I’ve always been a bit of a fan of Chaudhry’s but this is clearly overreach on his part, and the chances it’s connected to allegations about his son’s corruption are pretty high. Disappointed. Still, it looks like the PPP might be thinking about taking him seriously and removing Gilani. Weirdest story today – I’ve no sense of where this might go and I’m not seeing tweets from my Pakistani friends about where they think it might go either. Everyone’s holding their breath.
Has a pretty good piece on this.
…the Supreme Court as a political force if it didn’t sit at the apex of an extremely corrupt judicial system.
“Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you and you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use.” ~ Steve Jobs
Although, name a part of the Pakistani political system that isn’t extremely corrupt.
…co-ordinating and structuring mechanism for corruptions of various sorts.
“Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you and you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use.” ~ Steve Jobs
anarchy, you has it. and not the cool kind either!
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Hongpong.com