ISAS Insights

On 26 April 2012, Pakistan took one giant step forward in its long struggle to erect a political structure supported by a legal system in which citizens have full confidence. That will happen when the people’s elected representatives can exercise full authority and when there is respect for the rule of law. On that day, as helicopters hovered over the imposing structure that houses the senior judiciary, the Supreme Court decided to hold Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani guilty for having committed contempt of court. The much anticipated verdict by the court was delivered not by a bench headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry who has shaken up the Pakistani political system on more than one occasion. This time the sentence was read out by Justice Nasirul Mulk, presiding over a bench of seven men. (No woman is a member of the 19-man Supreme Court.) How will this verdict affect the political development of Pakistan? This “Insight” maintains that the decision to hold the prime minister to account – for contempt of the court – has enormous implications for the development of the Pakistani state.