Supreme Court takes up petitions against NRO today

The Supreme Court will on Wednesday start hearing of five constitutional petitions, filed against the National Reconciliation Ordinance 2007. It may be recalled that President Pervez Musharraf issued NRO on October 4, 2007, just two days before his re-election on October 6, 2007. The NRO paved the way for late PPP Chairperson Benazir Bhutto to come back from self-exile and take part in the general elections. In return, Benazir did not oppose Musharraf’s re-election and her party’s members of Parliament abstained from voting in the presidential election. The petitions will be heard by a larger five-member bench, headed by Chief Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar. The other members of the bench are Justice Mohammad Nawaz Abbasi, Justice Fakir Mohammad Khokhar, Justice Ejazul Hasan and Justice Chaudhry Ejaz Yousuf. The impugned national reconciliation ordinance states that all court cases and investigations against persons, who have held public office till October 1999, will be terminated. It applies to members of the National Assembly and Senate, the two house of Parliament, and also covered the late Benazir Bhutto. However, former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and his younger brother, Shahbaz Sharif, cannot avail of the amnesty given under the NRO. President Musharraf had stated that political reconciliation and harmony alone could help the government tackle key issues like terrorism and extremism. Veteran politician Dr Mubashar Hasan, retired bureaucrat Roedad Khan, and one Tariq Asad filed the petitions in the Supreme Court immediately after the promulgation of the NRO in October 2007. They contended that the NRO attempted to subvert the letter and spirit of the Constitution by seeking to usurp the judicial power of the State by granting de facto “legislative acquittal” to persons being probed pursuant to proceedings initiated between January 1, 1986 and October 12, 1999.” They said the facility of immediate legislative acquittal has been granted in a discriminatory manner only to the holders of public office in terms of the National Accountability Ordinance, 1999. The petitioners say the ordinance frustrates the clear intent of the Constitution, contained in Articles 62 and 63, regarding the ineligibility of any person, particularly the holders of public office to contest parliamentary elections if found guilty, amongst others, on charges of corrupt practice, moral turpitude or misuse of power or authority. The petitioners argued that the acquittal of a person through withdrawal of pending cases, especially those in which conviction has occurred, by means of a legislative instrument amounts to an unconstitutional interference with the judicial function and was a violation of the principles of independence of the judiciary as well as separation of powers enshrined in the Constitution. It may be added that these petitions came up for hearing before this bench on February 6, but the proceedings were adjourned at the request of the counsel for the petitioners. Prominent constitutional experts Abdul Hafeez Pirzada, M. Ikram Chaudhry, Dr Farooq Hassan and Mohammad Akram Sheikh will argue. The court has issued notices to the Attorney General, Advocates Generals of Punjab, Sindh, NWFP and Balochistan, Federal Secretary, Ministry of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs, provincial governments of Punjab, Sindh, NWFP and Balochistan, and the Chairman, National Accountability Bureau (NAB).