Gilani safe for six months?

Apr 27, 2012 - Shafqat Ali |

Islamabad

Tags:

Even if all legal resources to save Pakistan Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani are exhausted, it will still take over 6 months to remove him from the office, legal experts said.

Mr Gilani was convicted on Thursday by the Supreme Court for failing to reopen corruption cases against President Asif Ali Zardari according to the directions of the court.

Some law experts say he is automatically disqualified as PM as a convicted person cannot be the Chief Executive of the country. Others opine he can only be removed through a legal procedure. “The PPP (Pakistan People’s Party) wants to use all the legal resources to save the PM,” a senior PPP leader told this newspaper.

“We had already decided that the PM will not resign even if he is convicted and even if he is jailed,” the PPP leader added.

As per advice of the legal aides, the Prime Minister’s lawyer will file an appeal in the Supreme Court against his conviction.

“In case the court upholds its earlier verdict, the PM’s lawyer will then contest the point that six-month or below sentence does not lead to disqualification under Article 63-(1) (h) of the Constitution,” said a lawyer.

‘PM not convicted according to charges’

Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani’s lawyer Aitzaz Ahsan said on Thursday that the Supreme Court has not convicted Mr Gilani according to the charges against him.

Mr Ahsan said the Supreme Court charged Mr Gilani for scandalising the court which was not in the charges framed against him.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/146558" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd></li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-935ae73266099dbee0009b431aab3cad" value="form-935ae73266099dbee0009b431aab3cad" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="85610433" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>