Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani is refusing to step down, a day after the Supreme Court found him guilty of contempt for not reopening corruption cases against the country's president.
During a speech in parliament Friday, Gilani said his only crime was "protecting the constitution." He said only parliament has the authority to take away him from office, telling lawmakers he's an elected prime minister, representing Pakistan's 180 million people. Gilani challenged opposition lawmakers to bring a no-confidence vote against him.
The Supreme Court on Thursday gave the prime minister just a symbolic sentence of lower than a minute's detention, sparing him a potential jail term of as much as six months. His lawyer says the conviction can be appealed.
The court ruling triggered a right away debate about Gilani's status as prime minister. Legal experts say the truth that he was sentenced to a jail term, even for under a minute, makes him ineligible to take a seat in parliament for a higher five years.
The parliamentary speaker and election commission must now decide whether Gilani may also be dismissed as a lawmaker, and thus as prime minister. On Friday, he urged the speaker, who's a fellow member of the Pakistan People's Party, to "apply your personal mind" inside the case.
Opposition leaders, including former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, called on Gilani to step down, saying they may now not accept him because the country's prime minister.
Thursday's guilty verdict is the most recent development in what have been an ongoing battle between the court and the prime minister over the status of corruption cases dating back to the 1990s.
Prosecutors accuse President Zardari, former prime minister Benazir Bhutto and others of laundering millions of greenbacks through Swiss bank accounts. Bhutto, President Zardari's wife, was assassinated in 2007.
Charges against Zardari and the others were dropped after a 2007 amnesty agreement, however the court struck down the deal in 2009 and have been battling to reopen the cases ever since.
Prime Minister Gilani had refused to cooperate, arguing instead that the president has legal immunity while in office and that reopening the cases could be unconstitutional.
Some information for this report was provided by AP, AFP and Reuters.
From WhatNewsToday.net
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