ISAS Briefs

On 19 June 2012, Pakistan’s Supreme Court issued an order aimed at removing Yusuf Raza Gilani as Prime Minister. This should have happened earlier had the court’s decision in the “contempt case” on April 26 been fully implemented. The judgment was largely ignored by the administration headed by President Asif Ali Zardari, forcing the superior court’s hand. This time around, President Zardari blinked and accepted the court’s verdict. Gilani left office a few hours after the court spoke. After one misstep, Zardari was able to get his nominee in place as the new prime minister. This paper argues that these significant developments move Pakistan’s evolving political order in the right direction. There is of course an alternative view, held by some legal scholars and others, that the Supreme Court should have exercised judicial restraint and left the decision in the “contempt case” to take the slow route towards eventual implementation.