- A welcome respite
As efforts to stifle whatever little is left of independent voices in the country continue unabated, it is the superior judiciary that has emerged as a strong advocate of protecting inalienable rights of the citizenry to human dignity and freedom. The Supreme Court’s two-member bench’s landmark detailed judgement in the Paragon City case is a strong denunciation of NAB’s (National Accountability Bureau) shenanigans.
Without mincing any words, the author of the 87-page judgement justice Maqbool Baqar enumerates in no uncertain terms the third-degree methods that are adopted by the anti-graft body. Whatever that has been stated by the apex court are well known ground realities especially for those who have been at the wrong end of the stick of the accountability watchdog.
There is hardly any top politician of the opposition that has not been or still is under NAB’s radar. Contrarily there is hardly any member of the ruling PTI coalition that has been meted out the same treatment by the self-styled paragons of accountability.
Khan should come off his high horse, shed his shining armor and engage the opposition on accountability and other national issues which urgently need consensual decision making.
The Court convincingly observes that the NAB Ordinance is a simple tool for political engineering. Obviously, it is not coincidental that politicians of all hues and colour who joined the presumptive winner in the 2018 general elections are considered to be squeaky clean.
Understandably, the opposition in unison has demanded scrapping the so-called accountability law to be replaced by a consensual law for transparent and across the board accountability. But instead of paying heed to the voices of sanity in the country demanding an end to this long night of the long knives the government insists on mocking the opposition.
In response to the PPP (Pakistan People’s Party) chairperson Bilawal Bhutto and PML-N (Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz) president Shahbaz Sharif hailing the apex court’s judgment, the information minister Shibli Faraz has summarily rejected the opposition’s take on the matter. He has stated that Bilawal’s demands are condemnable as the opposition simply wants a free hand to loot the people.
After all, the Supreme Court, the highest court in the country is not exactly the opposition. Perhaps the legal eagles of the government must have briefed the prime minister that the court’s observations are not binding on the government.
That may be so. But the judgement has inexorably damaged whatever was left of the government’s so-called accountability drive.
To keep on brazenly parroting that NAB is an independent body is a white lie. It is a mockery of justice and fair play.
Instead, Khan should redouble efforts to change the NAB Law in consultation with the opposition. The NAB Ordinance promulgated in 1999 is the remnant of the dictator Pervez Musharraf. But even the former strongman could not have anticipated while enacting it, that his so-called democratic successors will use it so audaciously and with such abandon.
A parliamentary committee comprising of Federal law minister Farogh Naseem, Asad Umar, Babar Awan, Pervez Khattak and Shahzad Akbar was formed by the prime minister to draft a new NAB ordinance in consultation with the opposition back in April. But the committee has failed to come up with an agreed draft simply owing to the ruling party’s lack of interest in the matter.
After several meetings there is a modicum of consensus amongst the opposition parties on a new across the board and transparent accountability law. But as it is obvious, neither the PTI government nor its backers have any intention of doing away with an effective tool to victimize the opposition.
The PML-N, facing the wrong end of the stick, had taken a unique position about the NAB ordinance. It felt that its leadership is being made to suffer full throttle by the anti-graft body. Hence if the NAB remains as it is, in the future it will be possible to pay the presumptive PTI opposition in the same coin.
It is owing to this mindset that Nawaz Sharif as prime minister was reluctant to tinker with the NAB ordinance despite PPP’s blandishments. Little did Sharif realise that he could be hoisted by his own petard. Reportedly a much chastened PML-N is willing to go along with the rest of the opposition to scrap this vestige of a dictator.
Interestingly Shahzad Akbar has been promoted as advisor on interior perhaps to lead the accountability putsch in the parliament. The position of advisor has been swapped with Malik Amin Aslam, the advisor on climate change. He has been relegated to SAPM (special assistant to the prime minister) on climate change. Symbolically speaking, this clearly spells out the priorities of the government.
Legal circles including PBC (Pakistan Bar council) and SCBA (Supreme court bar association) have hailed the apex court judgement, asserting that over the years NAB has become a tool for political victimization and for arm twisting political opponents of the government.
Khan should come off his high horse, shed his shining armour and engage the opposition on accountability and other national issues which urgently need consensual decision making.
Another matter directly related to freedom of speech and democratic norms is the manner in which journalist Matiullah Jan was abducted by a posse of uniformed and plain-clothes goons in broad day light from a busy thoroughfare in Islamabad. Thankfully after a lot of hue and cry from the journalist’s fraternity, civil society and human rights activists, Jan was released in the middle of nowhere late in the night.
The apex court and Islamabad high court have taken notice of this outrage. The IHC declared that the alleged abduction of Jan was meant to ‘scare others’. Journalists as well as the free media in any case have a lot to be scared of in the present milieu.
The publisher of Jang/ Geo group Mir Shakeel ur Rehman is in the slammer primarily as punishment for the media group’s policies. In this sense the media persons are facing a double whammy: the possibility of being picked up by NAB or the ‘hidden hand’. Choose your poison.
Nonetheless in the present milieu the superior judiciary, despite its own contradictions, is a blessing in disguise.
