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: JURIST - The Paper Chase

Pakistan high court orders government to reopen corruption cases

By Bernard Hibbitts (editor) and University of Pittsburgh School of Law students.

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[JURIST] The Supreme Court of Pakistan on Tuesday threatened to imprison the head of the country's corruption agency for failing to meet a 24-hour deadline to reopen several corruption cases. Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry gave National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Chairman Naveed Ahsan and acting Chairman Irfan Nadeem another day to reopen the cases, including several against President Asif Ali Zardari. Ahsan pledged in writing that the cases would be reopened. The court's order displays the continuing tension between Pakistan's government and judiciary. In response to the court's orders, police detained Director General of the Federal Investigation Agency Ahmed Riaz Sheikh, who was convicted of corruption eight years ago. Sheikh's prison sentence was waived in 2002, and he was subsequently promoted within the agency, after former Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf issued amnesty in 2007. Tuesday's arrest is the first since the Supreme Court struck down the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO), which granted immunity to Zardari and 8,000 other government officials from charges of corruption, embezzlement, money laundering, murder, and terrorism between January 1986 and October 1999. In December, a Pakistani court issued an arrest warrant for Interior Minister Rehman Malik on corruption charges. Malik is among 19 officials whose corruption cases the NAB has petitioned to reopen in an anti-corruption court in Rawalpindi. The NAB has also petitioned a Lahore court to reopen the cases of 32 individuals, including that of Defense Minister Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar. The NRO was signed by Musharraf as part of a power-sharing accord allowing former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto to return to the country despite corruption charges she had faced.

Full post as published by JURIST - The Paper Chase on March 30, 2010 (boomark / email).