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| India-Pakistan | |
| Pakistan court disqualifies Gilani as PM | |
| 2012-06-19 | |
Supreme court rules that current prime minister cannot hold office two months after convicting Gilani for contempt.
Asif Ali Zardari, Pakistan's president, has held emergency talks among top leaders in the ruling PPP following Tuesday's disqualification. The decision comes two months after Gilani, the nation's longest-running prime minister, was convicted of contempt for refusing to ask Swiss authorities to reopen corruption cases against President Asif Ali Zardari, state TV has reported. Yusuf Raza Gilani has become disqualified from being member of the parliament," said chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, reading the order. "He has also ceased to be the prime minister of Pakistan with effect from the same date [April 26] and office of the prime minister shall be deemed to be vacant accordingly." The high court ordered Zardari to take steps to elect a new prime minister, state media reported. The court has asked the president to "honour democracy and appoint a new prime minister as quickly" as he can. Gilani, the nation's first-ever sitting prime minister to be convicted, can have the verdict reviewed but has no formal appeal process available to him, Al Jazeera's Imtiaz Tyab reported from Islamabad. "It's going to be very difficult for [Gilani] to come back from this," our correspondent said. "This is bad news for the president ... In many ways Yusuf Raza Gilani was the president's biggest supporter, now this case [Gilani's] goes back to a case involving the president in 2008, when the supreme court ordered Yusuf Raza Gilani to write to the Swiss authorities to begin a corruption." Any decisions Gilani has made since that April 26 contempt of court declaration will be rendered invalid. In that time, Gilani has made several decisions, including on the national budget. On February 13, the nation's top court summoned Gilani to charge him with contempt of court over his refusal to ask Switzerland to investigate Zardari, who is also the head of the ruling Pakistan People Party, for money laundering. Gilani told the court he would never think of violating judicial orders, but said he could not write the letter because the head of state he enjoyed immunity under the constitution. The court's April decision has been considered controversial. | |
| Posted by:tipper |