SC Restraint

WITH apprehensions running high and speculation running wild, something needed to be done to lower the political temperature. That something came from the Supreme Court yesterday in the form of an accommodating and conciliatory hearing in the NRO implementation case. Without giving any specific directions, the court essentially asked the government to find a compromise and return on Aug 8 with some kind of solution to the writing of the so-called Swiss letter.

What could a compromise look like? Perhaps just writing to Swiss authorities that the state of Pakistan no longer considers the letter written by the Musharraf-era attorney general, Malik Qayyum, to be legally valid. By stopping at that and not going on to specifically say that the state of Pakistan renews its request for legal assistance, wants once more to secure its status as a civil party in any revived proceedings against President Zardari in Switzerland and is once again laying a claim to the money that was once lodged in the Swiss accounts and which allegedly belonged to Mr Zardari, a compromise of sorts could be fashioned the Malik Qayyum letter would stand void but the Swiss would not have to consider whether to restart the proceedings against the president. Will the government meet the court halfway now andsave its second prime minister and the country from more political instability? The country will know more between now and Aug 8 on that front.

The government should think hard about how it wants to proceed. Welcome as the court`s restraint is, it is unlikely to last indefinitely. At least two reasons other than perhaps a change of heart at this late stage can be discerned for the court`s soft approach yesterday.

One, the Supreme Court hearings into the new contempt law passed by the government to try and protect Prime Minister Ashraf are still continuing.

While that matter has yet to be decided, contempt proceedings against him would be difficult to initiate after all, were the court to choose to move against Mr Ashraf, would it do so under the old, presently repealed law, or the new, presently under-challenge law? Two, after having suffered strident and increasingly direct criticism, the court may be aware that it has to tread softly at the moment. Throwing the ball into the government`s court to find an acceptable compromise now will make it more difficult for blame to be pinned on the judiciary later were Prime Minister Ashraf also to find himself in the dock.

Now is the time, then, for the government to compromise to disperse the clouds obscuring the election on the horizon.