October 17th is being trumpeted by many as a critical day in the history of Pakistan, it is a day which can be earmarked as a day to make or break one too many political giants of the present era. Two highly important political cases discussed while the Pakistani community holds it breath for their final decision. One case being the issue about the validity of Presidents Musharraf’s second 5-year stint as President of Pakistan and the other important case which is the life line of Benazir Bhutto and her heroic return the next day to Karachi being the NRO.

The NRO is officially referred to as the National Reconciliatory Ordinance which should have better been drafted as the National Robbers Ordinance, as it was created by thieves to protect their own fellow thieves. How can a country forgive crooks like Benazir Bhutto, Asif Zardari and Aftab Sherpao with one simple stroke of the pen. All these, and many other politicians from 1989 – 1999 are criminals by any standard of the law they have plundered this country threadbare and now hope to whitewash their crimes with a gracious deal from the President in exchange for offering him another lifeline of a few more years of power.

Pakistanis it seems are yet again holding their breath with the hope that the Supreme Court will make a last valiant attempt to salvage this nation from these crooks, but the all-knowing elitist grapevine is abuzz with the belief Benazir will land in Karachi to a heroic welcome on the 18th of October and Musharraf will be the next King President of Pakistan.

We are very optimistic about the Judicial process specially in the post CJP crisis era, but felt helpless when he witnesses undue pressure being applied on judges by the establishment to do according to their whims. These unfair arm-bending tactics have its toll and then nothing can be done to save the judges from passing an unfair decision in any case. We also believed that the 11-member bench which is slated to hear Musharraf’s case has been carefully constituted seemingly in full consultations with Shareef uddin Peerzada, to ensure a positive outcome for Musharraf.

If we take a close look at the 11-member bench, in light of their previous decisions, the bench seemingly poised at 6-5 against Musharraf, he now needs only to sway one judge to swing this decision into his favor. It must be noted that on Oct 10 this bench was revised to a more favorable position with Justice Sardar Mohammad Raza Khan (who had initially dissented in President’s uniform case) the CJP while reconstituting the bench gave the explanation that Justice Sardar Mohammad Raza Khan had already given his views that Gen Musharraf was not qualified to contest the election. Quite surprisingly he found an excuse to remove Justice Raza Khan leaving five judges who had already given a positive opinion for Musharraf and his uniform