Logical acquittal

The beleaguered PTI has a moment to cherish. It came as a shot in the arm as both former Prime Minister Imran Khan and his top diplomat, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, were acquitted in the cipher case. The thick and thin of the litigation for months had kept the affairs of the state on the edge. The ruling by a two-member IHC bench – which absolved the PTI leaders of the charges by setting aside their convictions by a trial court – can prove to be a redefining moment in sewing the political mosaic that stands tattered at the hand of creeping instability and polarisation. It is a good omen that the circle of justice has come through, and it goes to the resilience of the defendants who pursued the legal course with due diligence. Perhaps, that is why a cross-section of lawyers and jurisprudents have termed the verdict as a ‘logical solution’ paving the way for lessening of discord.

The case pertains to a diplomatic cable whose contents were made public by the ex-PM who was then booked for violating national secrecy. Its proceedings went through a lot of crisscrossing as the IHC had at its inception termed the jail trial erroneous and scrapped the entire proceedings. But the case made it to a special court, again in jail, and the duo were once again indicted. The 10-year jail sentence to both Khan and Qureshi raised many eyebrows, and set the ball rolling for a lengthy lawsuit as the incarcerated leaders were facing the music in many other cases booked against them.

It warrants some serious introspection on how such cases are constituted against political leaders – the cases that fail to stand the test of trial and tribulation under the canons of law. That is altogether important to set in a semblance of decency, and enable the national institutions to uphold the rule of law over whims and wishes. The PTI and the sitting political dispensation should see an opportunity in the acquittal to kick-start deliberations, and let normalcy return to the hallucinated political spheres. Release of acquitted leaders will galvanise the missing trust in the edifice of governance.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 4^th, 2024.

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