The Supreme Court’s Panama Challenge

The recent spell of activity in the Supreme Court regarding the Panama leaks issue has introduced a new phase of uncertainty in the mega corruption case. While the court has made public its aim of delivering a verdict on the case in a short span of time, the evidence being submitted by the concerned parties is unlikely to convince the court about producing a one sided judgment. For now, a couple of things have become clear: one, a verdict will come regardless of what it entails; second, the much anticipated court ruling is not likely to put away the debate on the issue in political circles.

The evidence submitted by the PTI doesn’t contain any substantial details that may change the course of the case that is being pushed by the party: the PTI is interested in ensuring the worst possible outcome in the case which begins from fluctuation in voter patterns, humiliation of the opposition party to the forceful resignation of the Prime Minister.

The Pakistan Muslim league Nawaz, on the other hand, understands that the safest path to avoid any further political instability due to the opposition’s politics of agitation is to place the ball in the judiciary’s court while making sure that the top court is being substantiated with sufficient evidence to keep the case balanced. On PML-N’s part, it’s a smart move to put pressure on the PTI to put forth evidence that entails credibility. Moreover, the Nawaz league also realizes that even if the opposing party was able to bring forth compelling evidence – which does not seem like happening – the decision to remove the country’s Prime Minister or to impose humiliating verdict wouldn’t come easily when the case is politicized to its core.

The Supreme Court, the party that is leading the case now is aware of the involved positive or negative implication attached with the case; not just for the involved political parties or domestic politics as a whole but also for the court as an institution as well. It’s one of the reasons that the top tribunal has persistently been grilling both political parties which on the court’s part, perhaps, reflect an exertion to validate its neutrality. While hearing the case a few days ago, the Supreme Court in its remarks told the PTI’s lawyer that we cannot disqualify the Prime Minister on the basis of speeches and news clippings.
“You need to satisfy the judges, not the media,” said the court in its remarks.

The court’s response towards the PML-N’s legal council has been similar: on January 12 court hearing, the judges in their remarks said that “Prime Minister had said that his life was an open book, but we feel that several pages of that book are missing.” The remarks were perhaps conservatory to the court’s earlier comments where it expressed its displeasure over the Prime Minister’s lawyer’s inability to present some documents in the court that the legal team had talked about elsewhere to consolidate the case.

The court understands that both of the parties are more focused on scoring political gains even after the case is likely to reach its conclusion in the next few weeks. The Supreme Court’s final decision is going to be as balanced as possible for the judges leading the case discern that the ultimate decision is not only going to strengthen or dampen the credibility of the Judiciary as an institution but would also set a precedent for the parties political priorities.

The underlying problem is that none of the political parties engaged with the issue want to see a decisive and logical conclusion of the case even if that places them on the losing end. The political parties involved in the case are either stalling the matter to avoid any possible political fallout or they are pushing to make sure that the political fallout should find appeal among the masses. If any of the involved parties were sincere about finding a solution to the country’s widespread corruption problem, they should have done it inside the Parliament rather than in streets by disseminating disinformation and violence. It’s ironic that while from Pakistan, hundreds of people were named in the Panama leaks revelations, only one or two people were presented as a scapegoat – and that too because they stand t gain or lose politically.

The unfortunate influencing attitudes of political stakeholders that are being reflected outside the Supreme Court and in talk shows are only going to harden the court’s levels of scrutiny. The Supreme Court should not let – as it has persistently shown recently – political factors to influence its verdict in any way whatsoever: the incoming decision is either likely to become part of the long list of verdict’s where the country’s judiciary’s role has not been known as that of neutral and impartial or it would corroborate as evidence to the last few year’s debates surrounding the institution’s independence.