Permission question

[Hal <klingons@speakeasy.org>]

When permissions on a link and a linked to library differ, which 
permissions control usage?  For example, can a program running with a 
non-root user utilize libpam when the permissions in /lib are:

lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root           14 Sep  1 09:31 libpam.so.0 -> 
libpam.so.0.72
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root        29420 Jan 21  2002 libpam.so.0.72

This is the setup from a stock woody install.

Thanks.