Pakistan Prime Minister Barred from Office

Pakistan’s Supreme Court has disqualified the country’s prime minister, Yusuf Raza Gilani, from holding office.

The ruling stems from an earlier decision to find Gilani in contempt of court, for refusing to re-open corruption cases against Pakistan’s president.

Anchor Marco Werman speaks with New York Times correspondent Declan Walsh in Islamabad.

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Marco Werman: Pakistan, with a leader, is a hard country to govern. Without a leader, it’s difficult to say what could happen there. Today, Pakistan’s Prime Minister, Yousuf Gilani, was disqualified from holding office by the country’s Supreme Court. Two months ago, it convicted Gilani of contempt of court for refusing to reopen corruption cases against Pakistan’s president. Now the court has declared that also means the Prime Minister is not legally entitled to remain in office. Declan Walsh of the New York Times is in Islamabad. This is huge news for Pakistan, Declan, a Prime Minister told he can’t be a Prime Minister. What’s the reaction to today’s ruling?

Declan Walsh: Well, we’ve just had a reaction from the ruling party. They’ve indicated that they will accept the ruling. They indicate that Mr. Gilani is no longer the Prime Minister of the country and that his cabinet effectively stands dismissed. They say they’re going to meet with the minority partners of the coalition later on this evening and at that point, after consulting with the President, Asif Ali Zardari, they will announce what their next move in this sort of long running confrontation, will be.

Werman: So, give us a clear picture of what Prime Minister Gilani is convicted of doing.

Walsh: Prime Minister Gilani was convicted of contempt of court on April 26th. President Zardari had faced a number of corrupt prosecutions in Switzerland in the 1990′s and in recent years the court had taken those cases up again effectively, and had been urging Mr. Gilani to write to the authorities in Switzerland, effectively getting them to restart those corruption prosecutions. Now Mr. Gilani had argued back that he was not in a position to do that because the President, as he put it, enjoys immunity from prosecution and therefore, it would have been against the Constitution, and then there was this little sort of [interim] period for the last six weeks or so, and then finally, today, we have this ruling from the court saying that it had had enough. It was effectively pulling the trigger and firing Mr. Gilani, dismissing him from office and instructed President Zardari that it is now time for him to choose and he ought to start the process of appointing or electing a new Prime Minister.

Werman: Does the Supreme Court have the power to do this and does Mr. Gilani have to abide by the ruling?

Walsh: Well, that is a very hotly debated question here in Pakistan. Certainly the government has consistently argued that the court is effectively prosecuting a personal grudge between the Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry and Mr. Zardari. This is sort of a personal hostility that goes back three or four years to a point where Mr. Zardari had opposed the reinstatement of Justice Chaudhry as Chief Justice, so the government is very strongly arguing that this is a politically motivated prosecution, but on the other hand, should the government choose to somehow refuse this order, that would very seriously escalate this conflict and create an even more serious crisis, I would say, in terms of clash between the government and the court.

Werman: With civilian government in limbo, does this present a greater risk of the military getting involved in politics in Pakistan?

Walsh: Well, that’s certainly a fear on some people’s minds and it’s been a very unstable period for the judiciary and for the government here in Pakistan, even by Pakistan standards, over the last couple of weeks, and at the same time, outside the court, you know, there are very serious problems rumbling along in the economy and the governance of the country. There have been extremely violent riots in several major cities [audio drop out] job problems over the past three days by people who are angry at the extreme power shortages in the country. In some areas, people are suffering power outages of up to 20 hours a day and it’s in extreme summer temperatures, so that anger is spilling out onto the streets. We’ve seen violent clashes between protestors and the police. Buildings have been burned down, offices have been attacked. The homes of some ruling party politicians have also been assaulted, so the temperature outside the court is also quite high and that’s contributing to the tension around the situation.

Werman: The New York Times, Declan Walsh, in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad. Thank you, Declan.

Walsh: My pleasure.

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PDF of supreme court short order dismissing the prime minister available here: bit.ly/MaejsT

— Declan Walsh(@declanwalsh) June 19, 2012

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