Daily Times

The jury is in. The International Court of Justice has ruled. Pakistan cannot, for the time being, execute the Indian spy it picked up more than a year ago on its soil earlier this year. And that is as it should be.

Yet there are vociferous voices coming from inside Pakistan that wholeheartedly beg to differ, with the religious parties taking the lead in slating the democratically-elected government for having played its hand so badly that their bloodlust has had to be put on hold. They have also accused the ICJ of failure in holding a free and fair trial — going as far as to contend that the UN court has a habit of displaying bias against Pakistan when dealing with cases involving the two neighbours. This is a very serious allegation and Pakistan should be grateful that none of these parties was representing it at The Hague. For we would have surely been slapped with charges of contempt of court. Also problematic are allegations that Pakistan is not taking matters of national security seriously.

Much, too, has been made of the inexperience of the lawyer chosen to represent Pakistan. Though much more has been made of possible behind-the-scene deal making. Here, it is the PPP and PTI who are leading the charge, citing the recent visit by a particular Indian businessman. In the case of the former, this suggests a return to a mandate of vengeful democracy just in time for the elections. As for the latter, this hints at a burgeoning romance of political and electoral convenience.

Yet amid this petulance over no one’s head being off for now — there is a resounding silence from the entire opposition. Meaning that if they feel as strongly as they claim then they should perhaps go back to beginning and redirect their ire towards the institution that got the ball rolling in the first place. Namely, Pakistan’s security establishment.  For in its rush to have go viral Kulbushan Jadhav’s video confession — that may or may not have been doctored — the establishment alone bears responsibility for jeopardising the tenets of a fair trial.

That the opposition political establishment has pretended that this is not the case tells us everything that we need to know about the battle lines along which the upcoming elections will be fought. And given how Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif spectacularly let the Army remain in the driving seat post-twittergate — it hardly seems likely that he will, at this point, directly turn on the establishment in what would be a most ill-advised bid to save this political skin. Thus it seems that the ICJ ruling may well pressurise the ruling PML-N further. Open debate is vital but not with the objective of unnecessary point scoring. It is time that Pakistan’s opposition act with responsibility and show unity on matters of national security.  *