Shooting fish in a barrel

The Supreme Court on Thursday 28^th June convicted PML-N leader Daniyal Aziz of contempt of court ‘until the court rises’ in a case pending against him. A three-judge bench found that he had committed contempt of court by making anti-judiciary statements in February of this year. There were three charges against him and he was acquitted of one and convicted of the other two but the judges spared him jail time. He may have been spared a prison sentence but the sentence passed down now prohibits him from contesting elections for the next five years — a heavy sentence indeed for one of the stalwarts of the PML-N.

This is the second PML-N senior figure to be convicted of contempt recently with Nehal Hashmi being sentenced in February 2018 for remarks he made in May 2017 in which he spoke against ‘those investigating’ Nawaz Sharif and his family, and once again there is a linkage back into the darker recesses of the Panama Papers case and the Sharif family involvement — or not — within it.

There is a battle royal going on between the judiciary at its apex level and political parties, with the PML-N currently on the losing side. Given the imminence of the election — now just four weeks away — and with major figures in the PML-N now officially out of play one has to wonder whether the party is going to be able to find appropriate replacements that will be up and running by election day. This is fertile ground for conspiracy theorists and we do not intend to add fuel to that particular fire, but the judiciary today is far more proactive than of yore and willing to make judgments that have a direct political impact and not only on the PML-N as the PTI and others have been on the receiving end as well. But it is the PML-N that has suffered the greatest damage at judicial hands, and coupled with internal conflicts which in part are a spin-off from judicial action there may be a knock-on effect come election day. Shooting fish in a barrel? Maybe. Watch this space.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 29^th, 2018.

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