The government's principal stand on which it premised its refusal to immediately write to Swiss authorities for reopening of money laundering cases against President Asif Ali Zardari was completely knocked down by the Sindh High Court (SHC) a decade ago. The government argued in its interim report filed with the Supreme Court in response to its direction that since the then prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, and his cabinet in 1997 had not authorized their Attorney General Chaudhry Mohammad Farooq in writing to file money-laundering cases against Zardari, Begum Nusrat Bhutto and Ms Benazir Bhutto in Switzerland, his action and correspondence with Swiss authorities was illegal. However, the SHC ruled that Chaudhry Farooq's letter was not without lawful authority and he had written it with the authority of the federal government. Way back in 1998 a few months after the initiation of investigations against them in Switzerland on Chaudhry Farooq's letter, Benazir Bhutto and Zardari had challenged in the SHC the authority of the attorney general (brother of Justice Khalilur Rehman Ramday) to send letters to the federal department of justice and police of Switzerland and other Swiss authorities in end 1997 that became the basis of the initiation of a probe against the couple and their cohorts. Record shows that a two-member SHC bench comprising Chief Justice Kamal Mansur Alam and Justice Muhammad Roshan Essani had dismissed the plea of Benazir Bhutto and Zardari and ruled, “It is apparent from clause (3) of the Article (100) that apart from the functions vested in the attorney general by the article, the federal government may assign to him other duties too. As such, under the authority of the federal government, the respondent No.2 (attorney general) could have written the impugned letter. Since, there is no dispute on behalf of the federal government with regard to the authority of the attorney general to write the said letter, we are of the view that the act of writing the said letter was not without lawful authority. The fact that the Federation of Pakistan is a party in these proceedings (in Switzerland) and has not disputed attorney general's act of writing the impugned letter would show that the same had been written with the authority of the federal government.” The judgment said that the impugned letter was neither a command nor an order nor was there any compulsion on the Swiss authorities therewith; it was merely in the nature of a request for mutual assistance in the alleged cases of corruption involving Benazir Bhutto, Asif Zardari and others. “By that letter, which is claimed to be written on behalf of Pakistan, information about the various cases of alleged corruption had been provided to the Swiss authorities with the request that action be taken in respect of such as were offence under their laws. Request was also made for providing to Pakistan information and evidence available in Switzerland pertaining to the referred cases of corruption, freezing of certain bank accounts and remittance of money to Pakistan illegally taken away. It was then for the Swiss authorities to consider these requests and take appropriate action,” the ruling had said. Legal experts say that had the SHC then accepted the arguments of Asif Zardari and Benazir Bhutto that Chaudhry Farooq had no authority to write letters to the Swiss authorities, the investigations in Switzerland would have come to a halt. After this SHC decision, Pakistani authorities pursued their request filed by Attorney General Chaudhry Farooq with Switzerland on behalf of the government and National Accountability Bureau (NAB) continued to send letters in aid of the official request, they argue. These experts said that in the wake of this authoritative decision of the SHC on the precise question, which the government has made basis of its decline to quickly write to Switzerland a decade later, the issue of finding authorization letters, delegating powers to the then attorney general to do what he had done was totally misplaced and misleading. They said that the SHC judgment was to prevail in this connection because it had tackled this question. They described the law secretary's expansive report filed with the apex court as a delaying tactic to implement the Supreme Court. They said that the prime minister would be committing contempt of court if he did not approve the reopening of the cases against Asif Zardari. The law secretary's report, these experts said, aims at buying time to such an extent where no letters are sent to the Swiss authorities for revival of the cases against the president, as directed by the apex court. However, they said what the government has failed to understand is that it has no option but to bow before the Supreme Court verdict on the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) especially reopening of the Swiss cases against Zardari.
