ISLAMABAD: The ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) on Wednesday rejected the detailed verdict of the Supreme Court (SC) in the Panama Papers review case, terming it an “awful example of prejudice, bigotry, anger and provocation”.
A resolution, adopted during a high-level huddle of the party chaired by ousted prime minister Nawaz Sharif at Punjab House, stated that the apex court had attempted to influence subordinate courts through the judgement.
“The language used in the detailed verdict was also not up to the judicial standards,” said the communiqué.
In the verdict issued on Tuesday, the apex court had declared that Nawaz Sharif tried to fool the people, parliament and the court in the Panama Papers case.
“He (Sharif) tried to fool the people inside and outside Parliament. He even tried to fool the court without realising that ‘you can fool all the people for some of the time, some of the people all the time but you cannot fool all the people all the time’. Refuge in evasive, equivocal and non-committal replies does not always help,” says the 23-page judgement authored by Justice Ejaz Afzal Khan on the dismissal of the review petitions filed by Nawaz Sharif, his children, and Finance Minister Ishaq Dar.
Lambasting the wordings of the verdict that used Urdu poetry to describe how the country was looted by ‘rulers’, the statement said that three-time prime minister’s struggle for the supreme judiciary was the part of history. It was same civilian leadership that turn the nation into a nuclear power, it added.
“Therefore, it’s not a question of rulers but the justice.”
Reason behind the damages to the state was questionable judgments issued under ‘doctrine of necessity’ that allowed ‘bandits’ to rule the country, it said, adding that civilian rulers on the other hand were appearing before the courts and presenting themselves for accountability.
Earlier on Wednesday, an accountability court dismissed Nawaz’s plea asking for the clubbing together of three references against him into one.
About the accountability court’s decision, the PML-N president complained, “The anger and grudges of judges have come out in their words”. He said that the court’s decision would be written as a dark chapter in the country’s history, adding that he had already known that the decision would not be in his favour.
The accountability court also formally framed charges against Nawaz in person during Wednesday’s hearing. Previously, the former premier had been represented by his attorney during his indictment on Oct 19 and 20.
