Daily Times

Dripping with emotion, the embrace between Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif and his niece Maryam Nawaz Sharif marked the beginning of a new era for the ruling family. There could not be a greater ad rem sign of the happy days shining through the clouds of doom and gloom for the House of Sharifs than Thursday’s acquittal in the Avenfield corruption case.

Befitting a Bollywood suspense thriller, the plot had many a loose end from the beginning. It was only a matter of time before the honourable seats of justice realised that a conviction could only hold true if there had been found an irrefutable stamp of circumstantial evidence. In the case of PML(N) Vice President and her husband, the journey from being “instrumental in concealment of the properties of her father” to gaining clearance by the court based on the prosecution’s failure “to prove the case against them,” the last four years have been nothing short of a roller-coaster ride.

Since a shabby case prepared by the NAB was brutally torn apart in the appellate proceedings, the prime minister seems justified in his emphatic enunciation of how the “edifice of lies, slander and character assassination” had come crumbling down.

After all, in an alternate reality, where his family had not been convicted and, by extension, forced out of politics, the situation on the ground would have headed in an entirely different direction. It remains to be seen how the much-talked-about party scion and her ambitious firebrand plans on walking down the red carpet. But while Ms Nawaz would be over the moon over her eligibility to run for elections, the controversial timing of this lifeline is hard to ignore.

As always, the politics of the day continue to hold sway over the realms of justice. The highs of whoever enjoys the good graces and the blessings stripped away the minute he steps into the fringes are becoming far too predictable a trend. The verdict would have been truly historic if the gavel had thumped despite an adversarial executive and laced-to-the-teeth accountability watchdog. Guilty or not guilty, the onus to prove the charges always remains on the state. *