Acquittal

Former three-time PM legally absolved of charges of possessing properties beyond his source of income

Eyebrows were raised as an accountability court set aside conviction and acquitted Nawaz Sharif. The swift manner in which the whole proceedings were conducted, within a month, with the plaintiff procuring all the relief at all the stages, has surprised the pundits of the judiciary. Former three-time Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has been legally absolved of charges of possessing properties beyond his source of income, and the Avenfield reference stands quashed. So is his conviction and sentence for 10 years handed out by the same court in July 2018. This is a tectonic politico-legal development and will have far-reaching consequences on the evolving political mosaic of the country.

Sharif has come a long way since his fall from grace, and ousting from power in 2017, in the backdrop of his name surfacing in the PanamaGate scandal. The former prime minister, and his party, made use of every opportunity to arm-twist the ground realities of state-centrism in the wake of political repression that they faced all these years. Thus, the surprising acquittal in a reference that pertains to the purchase of four flats in Park Lane, London, hints at a tale to be told of how politicians are made to bite the dust, and then restored to glory. It seemed fait accompli.

A glance at the court proceedings suggests that the case was not as simple to be done away with as it was made to be seen for obvious reasons. The defence lawyer was at impunity to get the court convinced that the elder Sharif had nothing to do with the properties. This is nothing but a tailor-made outcome of a long ordeal, and a case that ‘penalised’ the former first family.

There are some simple questions to be asked: who makes such cases that do not stand the test of trial ironically with the passage of time? Who decides on how and when public representatives must be booked in cases of irregularities corruption? And when will there be rule of law and transparency to restore faith of people in the system and judiciary?

Published in The Express Tribune, November 30^th, 2023.

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