The paper chase

By the admission of PTI’s own legal counsel the 17th November was not a good day in court

By the admission of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf’s (PTI) own legal counsel the 17^th November was not a good day in court. It is difficult to fault the intent of Imran Khan and by extension the party he leads. His calls for accountability and transparency in politics generally and specifically in the case of the Panama Papers and the alleged misdeeds of the Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, are laudable. There are questions to be asked and answered by the PM but as the Honourable Justices pointed out to the PTI legal team at the latest hearing they were going about the asking in a way unlikely to find sympathy from the apex Bench. The Bench went so far as to point this out to the PTI lawyers, and Imran Khan in a press briefing outside his home in Bani Galla after the hearing said that there was going to have to be a rethink of legal strategy.

There may well be substance in the PTI case but unfortunately it is wrapped in irrelevant verbiage. If Mr Khan is to win his argument then he has to present the court(s) with evidence and not allegations. Dressing up allegations as ‘evidence’ and claiming evidential worth merely by the volume of allegations proves nothing — beyond the fact that there may be a body of unsubstantiated allegations. It is this key element that Mr Khan is missing and his legal advisers ought to know better than allow him to invite the disapproval of the apex court. Honourable Justices do not like having their time wasted and they obviously decided this to be the case.



The Panama Papers matter is significant in a range of ways, not the least being that an elected PM with a healthy parliamentary majority can be called to account by a party that has but a small parliamentary presence. This is as it should be, and nobody whatever their station is above the law. We wish Mr Khan well in his endeavours, but if he is to be successful then he has to get his own papers in order, and sooner rather than later.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 19^th, 2016.

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