President Asif Zardari and Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani may now conveniently put the issue of appointment of judges at the Supreme Court on the backburner till normalcy returns in the legal arena where their constitutional gurus are trying to sift through the contents of the detailed apex court judgment on the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO). Some government authorities believe the Supreme Court had done the maximum possible against Zardari, a report appearing in the English language daily The News said. Therefore, they see absolutely no reason to strike any compromise to resolve the crisis over the judges' appointment, particularly the nomination of Justice (retd.) Khalilur Rahman Ramday as ad hoc judge. A source claimed a decision was taken to take a firm position to face the courts in the days to come and for this purpose a competent team was being put together to fight. The detailed judgment might escalate the war between the two institutions of state, as the government seems to be resolute in challenging many points raised in it and would not implement its observations unless review petitions were decided. The first sign of defiance in the ranks of ruling Pakistan People's Party (PPP) came to the fore when a firebrand PPP MP Afzal Chann blasted those judges of the Supreme Court who had taken two residential plots each, worth about Rs20 million, from different governments in Islamabad. These expensive residential plots were given to the judges when they were serving in provincial high courts. This gave a clear indication that the government was in a mood to defy and not to submit. The prime minister is said to be more concerned about the contents and implications of the judgment than the appointment of judges to the Supreme Court. Gilani, who so far had been evading the question about reopening the Swiss cases against his own president on the plea that he would wait for the detailed judgment, is facing perhaps the most difficult issue in his political career. Now after the detailed judgment has come he must decide about the Swiss cases and for that he would have to spend more time with his legal advisers. It would be interesting to observe which way he would swing as the chief executive of the country. Sources claimed President Zardari had come to know about the issue of detailed judgment last week when he was in Lahore. Therefore, the quick release of detailed judgment did not come as a surprise to him. Zardari was said to have been given some details about the contents of the judgment by a “messenger”. He was interested only in knowing one thing: whether the judgment had removed the umbrella of Article 248 (immunity to president from prosecution) to start prosecution against him in the court of law as president of Pakistan. Sources said Zardari was told the judgment did not clearly remove Article 248 but certain observations were made with regard to articles 62 and 63 of the Constitution which might hurt him. They claimed Zardari was not worried much as he already expected such remarks in the judgment. They said the process of signing the judgment by the judges last week kept Zardari from appointing a Supreme Court judge as recommended by Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry. The Zardari camp was said to have decided to wait for the detailed judgment before taking any decision on the appointment of judges. Sources said Zardari had decided much earlier that he would not give extension to the real author of the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) detailed judgment, Justice (now retired) Ramday, as he believed this was not fair to give extension to one judge and ignore rest of the judges when they would be retiring on their turn in coming months. These sources said Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry might soon get the reasons from the presidency behind the refusal of Zardari to appoint Ramday as ad hoc judge. They said if the name of Justice Ramday was resent to president for his appointment as ad hoc judge, it would only further create bad blood between two powerful institutions of the state, the judiciary and the presidency.
