The refusal of the FIA to let PML(N) President Shahbaz Sharif to leave the country because it had not yet taken his name out of the system may have given some small schoolboyish satisfaction to elements within the PTI, but it is playing with fire. Mr Sharif had been granted bail not because, as many PTI men are claiming, the judges are corrupt, but because NAB had simply no case. It would seem that PM’s Interior Adviser Shehzad Akbar, who had held several press conferences presenting new ‘discoveries of Mr Sharif’s corruption’, had put together a poorly prepared case. If that is the quality of legal advice being given to the government, it is perhaps not surprising that someone thought ‘the name is still in the system’ would wash. Though all that has happened is that the Court will have to step in again, the long Eid holidays may mean that Mr Sharif will not depart until after the Eid holidays.
The best reason for not treating Mr Sharif like this is that he has to have his annual check-up after having beaten off cancer. Also, whenever he has gone abroad, he has always come back and presented himself for the cases against him. He is likelier than not to rush back for the Budget, where as the Leader of Opposition in the National Assembly, and the most prominent leader of the Pakistan Democratic Movement, he is expected to play a prominent role. The only reason to use such a disingenuous excuse is that the PTI base must be satisfied. The news of Mr Sharif’s bail, even though it had been granted because the case against him was so weak, had provoked a frenzy among PTI supporters on social media, who apparently cannot tolerate the idea that yet another Sharif should slip out of Imran Khan’s hands.
The animus against Mr Sharif and his elder brother Nawaz should not lead the PTI into defiance of the courts. Prime Minister Imran Khan has blamed the judiciary for acting as a barrier to his agenda. That goes against the constitutional arrangement, which provides for the rule of law, not an individual or a party. Governments are supposed to use their powers, but only if they are lawful.
