Daily Times

The protracted judicial drama against former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his family ended with a verdict disqualifying him. The apex court also ‘directed’ National Accountability Bureau (NAB) to prepare and file references against Sharif and his family members to be tried before the accountability court on all the counts that the report of Joint Investigation Team (JIT) and petitions by Imran Khan, Sirajul Haq and Sheikh Rasheed had framed.

Ever since the Panama Papers came to light and Imran Khan termed it ‘godsend’ to bring down the Sharif government, Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) has won almost every local and provincial/national by-elections. Even a vacant seat in Senate that was previously held by a member of PPP who recently defected to PTI, went to PML-N. So the only gauge of ‘popularity’ is talking heads (including ‘defence analysts’) and program anchorpersons on the idiot box alongside the social media noise, all of which appeared to be supporting the de-seating of Nawaz Sharif.

From the kind of remarks the honourable judges gave during the proceedings post and pre-JIT report; the kind of ‘notices’ they were taking against anyone who appeared even remotely critical to the process; the visibly biased proceedings of the JIT and umpteen TV programs eulogising judges, it was quite clear what the verdict would be.

A few days ago, this scribe happened to be in a get together of a bunch of politicians and TV anchorpersons. They were talking about how Supreme Court will not make a decision ‘against the aspirations of the people. It was being said that the court knew what will follow in case Nawaz is not disqualified. I asked them what exactly will be the outcome. “Of course a public uprising against the court, social media onslaught and dozens of TV programs against the judges”, I was told. It was the shocking admission of the entire case being a political witch-hunt, not that one needed this subtle admission to make the same conclusion.

From the kind of remarks the honourable judges gave during the proceedings post and pre-JIT report, the kind of ‘notices’ they were taking against anyone who appeared even remotely critical of the process, the visibly biased proceedings of the JIT and umpteen TV programs eulogising judges — it was quite clear what the verdict would be

The verdict itself reeks of stinky politics that has surrounded the accountability discourse throughout the history of this country. The way the case started in April 2016 and took different turns throughout its theatrical proceedings, it cannot be considered as a drive against corruption and for accountability. There were indeed some people who only supported this hunt because they genuinely wanted to end the culture of impunity and carry out a process of accountability. They probably wanted to make it a starting point to bring the political class under the folds of accountability. But they failed to realise that instead of going after all corrupt elements, the so-called accountability process will only target Nawaz Sharif and his family.

It all appeared to be a get-Nawaz campaign, and even that would have been acceptable had it followed due process of law. No one is saying here that popular vote should be made a hiding ground for culprits of corruption and wrongdoings. But going after individuals selectively will not eliminate a systemic problem like corruption. Without even touching the post-colonial state fraught with undemocratic and colonial structures and systems that safeguard corrupt practices, we cannot fight corruption.

Moreover, how Nawaz Sharif still represented the ‘most powerful’ is beyond the comprehension of a person with even a basic sense of history of democracy and civil-military relations in this country. This was not the first time that the prima facie ‘most powerful’ class – the politicians – was made ‘accountable’. It was not centuries ago that PPP Co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari was incarcerated for eleven years for corruption and graft. Not too long ago, two major political parties were putting each other down to attain power and got intermittently deposed for corruption, literally every two years.

The self-righteous military dictators – all four of them – started anti corruption campaigns but used them only to eliminate the politicians they didn’t like. All this while keeping the most corrupt of the politicians on their side. This time again, it was carried out through a populist judiciary in partnership with puppet politicians who were surrounded by the most corrupt.

Despite this disturbing history, one had hopes that this time the process might actually generate an irreversible process of overhauling the entire structure of the state by targeting every single element within it that stimulates corrupt practices and emboldens the corrupt by safeguarding their impunity. Instead of this expected and greatly hoped path, the honourable court decided to take a course that would most certainly prove killer for everything good that might have happened in democratic system. The impossibly lowering of the threshold for the disqualification of the PM (non-disclosure of an undrawn asset) coupled with the infamous Article 62 that was invoked by the recent verdict are two most important factors that would now determine the future of every single democratic dispensation in this country.

The verdict has strengthened the view that white collar financial crimes are impossible to probe and prove in courts of law, and that such perceived culprits can only be fixed through judicial witch-hunt.

The writer is a staff member and can be emailed at marvisirmed@gmail.com, accessed on Twitter @marvisirmed

Published in Daily Times, July 30^th , 2017.