Nawaz Sharif has officially stepped down as Pakistan’s prime minister.
The shameful exit may have come as a severe blow to Pakistan’s most influential political dynasty. Indeed, the judicial action against an incumbent prime minister is a watershed moment for Pakistan’s history.
Though the judicial decision is considered by many as a step forward in establishing rule of law in a country that severely lacks in it, there is still plenty of scepticism to be found over the Panama ruling.
But first, let me firstly clarify what the entire thing was about.
Panama Papers in Pakistan
The case essentially was about two issues: First, that Nawaz Sharif’s family -- including his daughter Maryam’s husband -- had assets beyond their known sources of income. The second issue being the concealment of said assets.
On this, the verdict has been handed by the five-member bench by 5-0 majority. The PML-N party was not in question at all, not in it’s functioning, and definitely not in it’s status in the parliament. So, since it has the majority, the PML-N will continue to rule with whomsoever it elects as their next leader.
In all likelihood, it is going to be a smooth transition, because Nawaz Sharif and his closest confidants had been anticipating this. This was not an unexpected decision.
Unlike others, I don’t think the Supreme Court has equated itself with any sense of “great justice” in this case. Because of social media, most Pakistani newspapers were encouraged in talking about what the judgement was going to be. Which means the ruling wasn’t an entirely unexpected outcome.
Justice Khosa was next in line for the post of chief justice. In his interim judgement of April 28, he started by quoting Balzac’s infamous words about great fortune and great crime. Maybe it’s just me, but it feels like the good justice had already made up his mind on the former prime minister.
See, Nawaz Sharif was not found guilty for corruption. He has been found guilty for hiding his assets and not disclosing them. Yet, corruption charges are now to be levied against him in the accountability court.
Nawaz Sharif was not found guilty for corruption. He has been found guilty for hiding his assets and not disclosing them. Yet, corruption charges are now to be levied against him
Imran Khan was accused of similar misdeeds, whether he was in government or not matters little. He was guilty.
A court out of order?
In any normal court of law, if the court is employing agencies to investigate something, it is akin to a legal police investigation. You don’t hang a person on the basis of a police investigation that says that there are plausible charges against so and so. It’s a bit more nuanced than that.
Don’t take the charge sheets filed by the police as the judgement itself, no self-respecting legal establishment makes a ruling based on a police charge sheet -- you file charges and then hold a trial. Instead, what they have done is take the JIT’s (Joint Investigation Team) judgement into account without any form of cross-examination.
And without almost anything else to go by, they have decided that they are going to convict an elected prime minister, disqualify him, mount a judicial coup, and then feed him to the proverbial dogs.
If the court honestly thought Sharif was guilty, then they should have charged him and thrown him into prison, but even that wasn’t within their purview.
It’s a different matter that Nawaz Sharif wasn’t really able to produce the kind of evidence which was required to acquit himself, but a public interest litigation is not an appropriate forum for disqualifying an elected member of parliament, much less an elected prime minister.
This is kind of kangaroo court that Pakistan has.
Unfortunately, Nawaz Sharif made a number of judgmental mistakes and he walked into a trap set for him by the Pakistan Army and the judiciary combined. It’s unfortunate that there was hope that at least, for once, a Pakistani prime minister would complete his tenure.
Now, that hope is also gone, as he is now also being dismissed for a judicial murder as well.
Sharif Hasan is currently working as a field researcher on behalf of Centre for Genocide Studies (CGS), University of Dhaka.
