IN a split — and also unusual and so automatically controversial — decision, the special court trying Pervez Musharraf for treason has directed the government to include three individuals — former prime minister Shaukat Aziz, former law minister Zahid Hamid and retired chief justice of Pakistan Abdul Hameed Dogar — as co-accused.

In effect, this means that the retired general’s trial, which has seen the prosecution already present its case, would have to be restarted.

The majority decision acknowledges that the trial of the former dictator may be “delayed” as a result of the order, but argues that the move is necessary in the interests of justice and the court’s “legitimacy in the eye of the public”.

Also read: Special court partially okays trial of Musharraf's abettors

To understand the court’s logic, reference to paragraph 27 of the order is helpful. Here the court essentially explains that it was the ouster of then chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry (an act in which the three co-accused were complicit, according to the special court) that realised Mr Musharraf’s intent of suspending the Constitution and replacing the superior court judges — and not the mere promulgation of several orders by Mr Musharraf on Nov 3 to suspend the Constitution and make superior court judges take a fresh oath under the PCO.

Controversial as the court’s order may be, it has all but knocked out the government’s strategy to try Mr Musharraf and some serious rethinking will need to be done by the PML-N.

In truth, however, many of the problems now facing the government are of its own creation. To begin with, the government chose to try Mr Musharraf for the November 2007 emergency rather than the original sin of the October 1999 coup.

This left the issue open to the complication now identified by the special court that the replacement of then-chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry with Abdul Hameed Dogar could not be effected by Mr Musharraf alone, given that the Prime Minister’s Office and the law ministry had to officially sanction the change and Mr Dogar had to accept his elevation.

In addition, the problem of trying Mr Musharraf alone when the joint investigation team that led to the formulation of charges against Mr Musharraf had mentioned — but left unidentified — abettors was also obvious.

Even if Mr Musharraf was guilty of crimes against the Constitution, why should others not be identified and tried for the very same crimes against the Constitution that Mr Musharraf is being tried for?

Those two mistakes — or perhaps wilful blindness to the facts — have now caused the government’s plans to be thrown into disarray.

Mr Musharraf ought to stand trial for staging a coup, in 1999 and in 2007, and all those who facilitated a coup ought to be put on trial too. By being selective, the government is now faced with a lengthy delay in its primary goal, a Musharraf conviction — assuming a trial will ever be completed.

Published in Dawn, November 22th , 2014