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ISLAMABAD,: The Thursday conviction of Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani by a seven-judge Supreme Court bench has generated a debate on a number of important legal and constitutional matters, including the existence of the contempt of court law.
Some lawyers with leanings towards the ruling Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) claim that the contempt of court ordinance under which the prime minister has been convicted does not exist at all because it has lapsed in 2004.
The court in its short order has mentioned that it has found the prime minister ‘guilty’ and “convicted for contempt of court under Article 204(2) of the Constitution read with Section 3 of the Contempt of Court Ordinance (Ordinance V of 2003) for wilful flouting, disregard and disobedience of this court’s direction” in its earlier verdict in the NRO case.
The ordinance was promulgated by former military ruler Gen (retd) Pervez Musharraf in 2003. President Musharraf re-promulgated the said ordinance later in 2004.
Though, it was laid before the National Assembly in the form of a law, it was never passed by the house and ultimately lapsed.
“There is no statute at the moment existing regarding law of contempt,” declared attorney-general Irfan Qadir while harshly criticising the court’s verdict terming it a violation of the Constitution under Article 25 which states that “all citizens are equal before law and are entitled to equal protection of law.”
Mr Qadir quoted Article 25 of the Constitution in his apparent reference to a similar case when three years ago the Supreme Court on the question of existence of the same law had to suspend the punishment it had awarded to the former IG Islamabad police and seven other officials of the capital administration for manhandling the chief justice when he was coming to attend the meeting of the Supreme Judicial Council on March 13, 2007 after his forceful sacking by Gen Musharraf.
The attorney general had raised the same issue in his arguments before the seven-member bench headed by Justice Nasirul Mulk during the contempt of court hearing against the prime minister.
Former spokesman to Gen (retd) Pervez Musharraf and now a PPP leader, Fawad Chaudhry, endorsed the attorney-general’s views and explained that the Supreme Court had in fact suspended its sentences against former IG Islamabad, the SSP and others when their counsels filed an appeal against conviction of their clients on the ground that the contempt of court law did not exist as it had already lapsed.Terming the Thursday’s verdict ‘unprecedented’ in the country’s judicial history, Mr Chaudhry said that on one hand the apex court had suspended punishments of those government officials who had physically and publicly abused and misbehaved with the chief justice in the presence of cameras and on the other hand, it had convicted the elected chief executive of the country who had been showing complete respect to the judges.
A former Supreme Court judge who had refused to take oath under Gen Musharraf’s PCO Justice (retd) Wajihuddin rejected the notion that the contempt of court ordinance did not exist.
Mr Wajihuddin, now a member of Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaaf (PTI), said that the Contempt of Court Ordinance 2003 held the ground after its validation through the 17th Constitution Amendment passed by parliament in Dec 2003.
He was of the view that even if an ordinance lapsed, the previous law stood revived and the country had the contempt of court act in its statutory since 1976.
It may be recalled that former president Rafiq Tarar had also promulgated a contempt of court ordinance in 1998 repealing the 1976 Act but it was later struck down by the Supreme Court when there was a confrontation between the judiciary and the then prime minister Nawaz Sharif.
