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Pak lawmakers pass 'PM shield' contempt exemption bill | The Pakistani parliament has passed a bill that would exempt senior government
figures from contempt of court
proceedings, in an apparent bid to save the new prime minister from disqualification.
The move comes a day after the bill was approved by the National Assembly, reports
The Dawn. The Supreme Court has given Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf until
Thursday to tell whether he will obey an order to ask Swiss authorities to reopen
corruption cases against President Asif Ali Zardari. The court dismissed Yousuf
Raza Gilani as prime minister on June 19 after convicting him of contempt in April
for refusing to reopen the cases against Zardari. The bill, which now needs to
be signed by Zardari before it becomes law, seeks to exempt senior government
figures including the president, prime minister and ministers from contempt for
acts performed as part of their job. The Senate passed the bill after a debate
late on Wednesday as the main opposition party Pakistan Muslim League-N headed
by Nawaz Sharif staged a walk out to boycott the proceedings. But the Contempt
of Court Bill 2012 also prompted concerns from some within the ruling Pakistan
Peoples Party, with senator Aitzaz Ahsan saying during the debate that "any law
framed in haste is counter-productive". The allegations against Zardari date back
to the 1990s, when he and his wife, late premier Benazir Bhutto, are suspected
of using Swiss bank accounts to launder 12 million dollars allegedly paid in bribes
by companies seeking customs inspection contracts. The Swiss shelved the cases
in 2008 when Zardari became president and the government insists the president
has full immunity as head of state. But in 2009, the Supreme Court overturned
a political amnesty that had frozen investigations into the president and other
politicians, ordering that the cases be reopened.
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