Daily Times

“Behind every fortune there is a crime”, a line from a renowned novel by Mario Puzoin 1969, is the basis on which the then Chief Justice of Pakistan(CJP) had disqualified the former premier Nawaz Sharif in the Panama case judgment. It is, therefore, safe to say that Sharif was disqualified on the pretext that since he has made a fortune, he must have used illegal means to do so.

His Lordship’s standpoint is further cleared in a later paragraph where he refers to the original expression in French, “I may, therefore, be justified in raising an adverse inference in the matter. The fortune amassed by Respondent no. 1 [Nawaz Sharif] is indeed huge, and no plausible or satisfactory explanation has been advanced in that regard. Honore de Balzac may after all be right when he said that behind every great fortune for which one is at a loss to account there is a crime.”

When such a statement comes from a barrister who made a name for himself in the field of law, and then became a judge, it certainly raises your eyebrows that all principles related to burden of proof and issues related to justice expressed in Islamic as well as western jurisprudence were so easily neglected, and a phrase from a novel, and that to a French one, was made the basis for a decision by the highest authority of the state.

With the mindset that every successful person is a criminal, imagine the fate of Bill Gates had he been born in Pakistan. Firstly, he never would have become Bill Gates in the first place. He would have most certainly been swayed by his parents to either join the army and give his life for the country, or become an ordinary citizen like the author.

We Pakistanis have been pushed into a system that is corrupt by default

Imagine his fate, his offices being raided by NAB authorities. Listen to the press conferences of NAB officials in your head, ‘No one is above the law’. Of course, no one is, but imagine yourself in the spotlight. Does it not sound like: We have already made up our minds, you are a criminal.

Imagine the media, anchors pushing the recently witnessed narrative on TV with regard to the reference filed against Honourable Justice Qazi Faiz Esa: why is there a hue and cry if Justice Esa is clean? Why not just appear before the authorities and come clean?

Let us put this aside for a moment and be bluntly honest with ourselves. As they say, easier said than done, when it comes to you will you really trust the justice system? No, you will not. You will immediately start complaining. Remember how Dr Shahid Masood ran from the court of Additional District& Sessions Judge when his bail-before-arrest application was rejected. Why did he not trust the justice system? It is very easy to say to others that it is okay to spend a couple of years behind bars in the process of cleaning your name, but when it comes to you, you will start crying like a baby. One may also ask: before which authority should one appear?

If you observe without bias, you would see that in Pakistan almost every person wants to be rich but cannot absorb the idea of others being rich. When you hear of a poor family member becoming rich, do you thoughtlessly utter the idea that he must have done something wrong? How did he become so rich overnight, you ask sarcastically. This behaviour is then reflected at the national level.

Look at what we did with Malala Yousafzai. Anchors like Orya Maqbool Jan and others have portrayed her badly simply because she is successful, and has become one of the most known celebrities of the world for her bravery. What about other girls, you ask with sheer envy. Are they not daughters of someone?

The simple explanation to Malala’s success is that she is a good public speaker, and was already a fairly known figure even before the attack on her for her writing and her keen interest in education despite belonging to a fairly underdeveloped area.

There is no end to miseries that will come your way once you are on the radar. You would endlessly appear before the authorities, answer their open-ended questions, hire lawyers, fire them, and answer media’s taunting questions. In the meantime, before your trial has even begun, you would already have been labelled as a criminal.

If you do get bail from the High Court, people like Fawad Chaudhry will say that rich men get free in Pakistan, whereas the poor remain behind bars forever. An impression will be given that you have bought off the judges. Seeing that, justices would obviously be perplexed as well as disappointed that though this was just another case, and they decided on merit, but they are being seen by the public with a suspicious eye. At least that is what will appear to be true on TV. Whereas if you do not get bail, some people will say that now that we are in power, justice is being served. So either way you will be in trouble.

There is the free-fall propaganda system. It sends a general vibe to judges that certain types of decisions are seen as ‘just’ by people, and certain as ‘unjust’, irrespective of what the law says. One of the reasons due to which the average accused in a blasphemy case remains behind bars for at least a decade until finally being acquitted from the Supreme Court is that almost every judge, from a magistrate to a High Court Justice, is worried about people’s reaction if he grants any sort of relief to the accused, even if legally he is entitled to it.

But then we have our own explanations when it comes to providing different sorts of justice to different sorts of people. For instance, those that the state deems as terrorists, their fate is determined by military courts. Those who are deemed less aggressive than terrorists become missing persons, and their fate is determined by the intelligence agencies. Those politicians who are deemed as traitors, their fate is decided by the authority which in all other matters is the final forum for justice but in this case becomes the first: the Supreme Court of Pakistan.

We Pakistanis have been pushed into a system that is corrupt by default. Irrespective of who the architect of this system is one type of people must reconsider the job they are doing: judges. Allah Almighty has placed a heavy burden on those who assume the position of a judge, and has declared severe consequences for those who knowingly issue a wrong verdict or issue a verdict based on ignorance. This is not being said as an accusation towards any judge, but rather to remind them of the expectations their Creator as well as people have from them. Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) said: “He who has been appointed a judge has been killed without a knife.”(Abu-Dawud)

The best advice for such people is: If you cannot stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. People like Bill Gates are the product of the environment they live in. We will never produce a Bill Gates in this environment, but what we will produce is millions of people living insignificant and shallow lives, full of desperation.

The writer is a barrister practicing law in Peshawar and Islamabad and has graduated from Cardiff University, UK