Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari Tuesday filed an application with the Supreme Court, requesting it to allow him to become a party to the reference seeking to revisit the Zulifkar Ali Bhutto (ZAB) case that led to the former prime minister’s execution in 1979.

“Being the political heir of my grandfather, I want to apprise the court of some material facts and further grounds which led to the unjust and brutal murder of my grandfather,” the application by Bilawal stated. “The applicant before this court does not claim any monitory compensation but the compensation for him lies in the correction of Pakistan’s history,” he said in the application, filed by senior lawyer Farooq H Naek. “The compensation lies in the restoration of dignity to the name of my wrongly executed grandfather and by consoling the hurtful sentiments left by the case,” he said, adding, “If miscarriage of justice is rectified and due care and diligence is exercised while dispensing justice, then my purpose will be served and a victory will be achieved not only for myself but for the people, democracy, and justice and the judicial system.”

“The injustice done against my grandfather is well known, but I never instigated any agitation nor disrespected the judiciary,” Bilawal said, adding that one of the judges on the bench that decided the case – Justice (r) Nasim Hassan Shah – while following the voice of conscience, had admitted publicly that the decision of Bhutto’s appeal was taken under influence and grave coercion.

The PPP chairman said that global trend has now shifted towards the provision of justice for innocent people, and the hindrance of procedure is being extinguished throughout the world. Giving examples of other countries, he said there was advent of criminal review commissions in England, Scotland and most of Europe in line with conventions on human rights. In the United States, he added, there is ‘Innocent Protection Act’ and in neighbouring India, there is now the ever-evolving concept of curative petitions. “All these are instruments for rectifying wrongs that have been committed to persons wrongly convicted of offences that they were innocent of. There is no reason why such a noble trend is not accepted in Pakistani jurisprudence with open arms and measures taken in furtherance of provision of justice to the wrongly convicted,” he stated. “Legal systems of the world are now recognising that they are not perfect,” he remarked, adding that it is even more applicable to the local legal system where poor and needy lack efficient legal representation and the powerful dominate through their influence. “At the end of the day, the applicant before this esteemed court is a nawasa fighting for the cause of his nana,” he said. “Refusing to reconsider the case would be oppressive to judicial conscience and would cause perpetuity of injustice which would not be tolerated by a just judicial system,” he said, and emphasised that his grandfather is entitled to posthumous relief under the concept of ex-debitio justice.

Published in Daily Times, October 10^th 2018.