Although the Pakistan Army has made it clear that it will play its due role through its members in the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) to ‘fulfil the confidence’ reposed in the institution by the Supreme Court, yet the statement may be insufficient to address apprehensions of the opposition. On 20th April, 2017, the Supreme Court, in the Panama case, had asked for the formation of a JIT comprising members from the ISI, MI, State Bank, Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP), National Accountability Bureau (NAB) and the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) to probe into the financial affairs of the Sharif family. It is a tragedy of Pakistan’s politics that the military either voluntarily or involuntarily becomes a party to almost each and every challenging political issue. How can the military be expected to investigate financial crimes? The involvement of the army in such affairs only shows the mistrust of civilians towards civilian institutions, which over the years have performed miserably in delivering justice. What does this tell us about the crisis of accountability in Pakistan? For one, there is a trail of corruption cases from successive governments, and yet no administration had the courage or foresight to formulate an effective strategy for the process of accountability. Instead, the institutions tasked with accountability have been accused of following a ‘pick-and-choose’ policy — and perhaps not without justification. Another unfortunate aspect of the lack of accountability in Pakistan is the absence of across-the-board action. There are certain powerful institutions whose personnel remain unscathed. The concept that only civilians commit corruption while those holding office in the civil bureaucracy, military establishment and the judiciary couldn’t possibly do so: such a notion should never be accepted without question. Pakistan needs across the board systems of accountability. And we seem far from achieving that goal. True accountability can be achieved through impartial action against all those who are found involved in corrupt practices — not only when it serves the interests of some political party to target another political party with charges of corruption. If we do not evolve such a system, designed and operated by civilians, we will have to keep involving the armed forces in questions of accountability and governance — to the detriment of all those involved, be they civilian or uniformed. *