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| Beneficiaries lose NRO shield today |
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Saturday, November 28, 2009
By Tariq Butt
ISLAMABAD: The life of the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO), extended by the Supreme Court (SC) for up to four months, terminates on Saturday.
The apex court will take up next month the pending petitions to decide the fate of massive benefits drawn by over 8,000 persons under this controversial law and will also determine the scope and parameters of the constitutional immunity Asif Ali Zardari had from prosecution as the president.
“Our legal experts had opined that the SC would certainly not resume hearings on the petitions challenging the NRO before the ordinance would cross its 120-day life given to it by the apex court itself in its July 31 judgment,” a federal minister, who advises the president on legal matters, told The News.
That’s why, he said, the government always held the view that the NRO beneficiaries were safe till Nov 28. What would happen as a result of the impending SC ruling on the NRO was anybody’s guess, he said.
The anti-NRO and President Zardari’s lawyers are poised to seek from the apex court in its verdict on these petitions the extent and scope of the constitutional immunity available to a president, facing grave corruption charges, from prosecution for civil and criminal offences.
In this connection, the most important question that they plan to raise is whether the immunity would extend to a president, who was not qualified to hold this office at the time of his election. If the court holds that Zardari was ineligible to contest the presidential election, he would stand knocked out of the Aiwan-e-Sadr, these lawyers say.
Legal minds advance different scenarios and fallouts about the fate of the NRO cases. One is that all the corruption and criminal cases, supposed to have been quashed under this ordinance, would stand revived if the NRO is held void from the very beginning. This means all the over 3,500 cases of corruption and heinous crimes, giving amnesty to more than 8,000 people, would reopen.
According to them, the second scenario is if the cases abolished between Oct 5, 2007, when the NRO was promulgated, and Feb 3, 2008, when it expired after its initial 120-day life, were exempted by the apex court on the ground that the NRO was a valid piece of law during this period, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement would hugely benefit, as it had got all the criminal charges against its leaders and workers dropped during this period.
Legal experts say the third scenario is that all the cases that were dispensed with between Feb 4, 2008, and July 31, 2009, would stand reopened if the apex court ruled that the NRO did not exist during this period for having lapsed after its original four-month life, with the Nov 3, 2007, state of emergency in force, through which the NRO was given a constitutional cover, having already been declared unconstitutional by the SC.
Another federal minister, considered to be close to the president, said the focus of arguments from the government side during the court hearings on the NRO would be that no corruption case covered by this ordinance could be revived, because all the cases stood withdrawn and terminated the moment the ordinance was promulgated and that this consequence was not dependent on or subject to orders of courts.
There are indications that apart from the lawyers of the petitioners, including Roedad Khan and Dr Mubashir Hassan, some other leading advocates would jump in the legal fray against the NRO in the apex court.
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briefs...
20 die in Afghan floods, avalanches
KANDAHAR: Twenty people have died in floods and avalanches triggered by some of the heaviest rain and snow in Afghanistan for 50 years, an official said on Monday. At more |
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ISSN 1563-9479 
