The Daily Pakistanpolitics Dec17, 2009

• Dec17-2009--In what can be considered a major turnaround the SC which had watched passively cases being withdrawn or ended under the NRO for over two years declared for the first time inits history an ordinance to be unconstitutional under teh strange grounds that it contravened teh provision of equality...victimisation too contravenes teh concept of equality...as do the upside down soceital, security, social and financial structures in pakistan...however one does not see why a government cannot withdraw cases when it knows that they are politically motivated and that teh individuals concerned have suffered enough...the SC has thus joined teh band of politicians who do things for political reasons or because they are more popular than teh truth or reality...while the SC has correctly or dubiously declared teh NRO ultravires the withdrawal of cases should have been left to teh individual judges who can do teh same thing all over again...one does not know whether teh court has the powers to cancel legal proceedings entoto...this is teh second case in which the SC has overturned executive ordnances, actions or legal court proceedings..while teh action is strange since it backed down earlier asking the government to validate teh ordnance in parliament... one does not see how the parliaments approval would have changed teh basic nature of unconstitutionality...there is a basic conflict in teh SC's attitude and one hopes that one day it will overturn its earlier wrong rulings approving teh unconstitutional military takeovers and rule...It also cancelled all judicial and governmental actions after 5 October 2007 under the ordnance...it is also quite well known that the attorney general acted under teh orders of teh than government to withdraw the swiss cases as they were at best being tried as money laundering and teh withdrawal of a case is not an unconstitutional event...why teh swiss courts ended teh cases is unclear unless it was clear that they were politically motivated and were being handled in a strange political alliance between military dictators in pakistan and the western rulers coalition...?
  
• Dec17-2009--while the PPP rulers especially yusuf raza gilani have started to look pathetic as they were unable to present any sensible view on the NRO case in court...while many regard asif zardari tobe immune while he is president he could be facing a host of cases if he either resigns or when he leaves office...apparently teh PPP enjoys court cases and hopes to make teh SC look stupid if they can again get the lower courts to reject NAB's cases...many suggest that they should quickly move to replace the NAB heirarchy with people who might be more favorable to them...there is talk of resignations in the air and yusuf raza gilani could present his resignation and allow a new primeminister to start afresh with a relatively untainted team...there seem to be no thoughts of zardari resigning unless the military forces him out...There are also talks of Gen Petraus threatening the rulers but zardari apparently has refused to move faster in the quagmire of waziristan and have rejected american attempts at starting operations in north waziristan which is relatively calmer these days
  
• Dec17-2009-- the cabinet apparently decided to reduce ministries to 30 from 42 and divisions from 52 to 37...they also will attempt the unpopular...privatise PIA, railways, steel mills, wapda and pepco as they say they spend 252 billion on them which is more than they used to spend before privatisation started ...one wonders what they want todo with all the huge taxation revenues...they will also supposedly reduce foreign travel and travel around in locally produced armoured vehicles...while entourages should not be more than three vehicles they will have seven and six for chief ministers...
  
• Dec17-2009--27 militants killed in kurram
  
• Dec17-2009--seven die as helicopter gunships strike Tirah valley