Take away all the political wrangling and jousting for power and the legal questions raised by the Panama Papers leaks are simple: What was the origin of the money used to purchase properties in London by Nawaz Sharif’s children? If it can be proven that the money came from the prime minister himself and that he had never declared those assets then he is guilty. The case so far presented to the Supreme Court by the PTI, as the judges themselves pointed out, is lacking documentary proof against Nawaz. The court has stressed focus on the matter of the Sharifs’ flats in London rather than diverting to all kinds of other areas to cover the entire life of PM Nawaz Sharif. A courtroom is very different from a container and repeating the same overheated accusations without the evidence to substantiate it will not convince the judges to rule in favour of the PTI. That evidence, if there is indeed any, has not been produced so far and usually, no matter what we may think, the law works with a presumption of innocence on the part of the defendant. The PTI’s legal strategy seems to have been to repeat the accusations against Nawaz and then hope the Supreme Court investigates those allegations. Court hearings are not fishing expeditions where the judges themselves go in search of proof. That job was the PTI’s to do and it seems not to have realised that.
The PTI’s inability to make a case so far has surprised many when it is not really the perception that the documents filed in the Supreme Court by Nawaz Sharif’s children raise no questions at all. The PTI itself has been rather fond of making a big show of such questions on every TV show. But none of it has helped it make much of a case. There were reports that Imran was not too happy with his lawyers particularly Hamid Khan and that the respected lawyer could be replaced, possibly with Babar Awan. They were borne out on Friday after Hamid Khan resigned soon after Imran left for London. Calling Imran Khan his leader, Hamid blamed the situation on the media. However, the way he talked of a media campaign against him leaves room for assuming that this in itself may be traced to internal divisions and disagreements within the PTI. In the wider picture, the fault on the part of the PTI lawyers seems to be that they failed to either realise or make the PTI leadership realise that the kind of material provided to them would not hold much water in a court of law. The fault on the PTI’s leadership’s part is more serious. They cannot expect their lawyers to do in a courtroom what they have been doing atop containers and then unfairly blame the lawyers for their own folly. The PML-N and its leaders are already beginning to make triumphant remarks because they may be foreseeing the whole matter ending in yet another embarrassment for the PTI. We suggest they advise themselves against this attitude – if for nothing else then only because this triumphalism is still premature.
According to latest reports, Imran Khan is in London in the apparent hope of uncovering this evidence. But quite obviously any relevant papers will not simply turn up in a random café or street. If evidence was available, the PTI which has been using the Panama leaks as its main slogan for many months should have collected it first and put it together in a manner which was acceptable to a court which must rule on the basis of legally valid evidence and not the rhetoric by Imran Khan. The hearing has now been adjourned till November 30, giving the PTI time to convert its political sloganeering into a coherent legal case. It has so far relied on news reports and expected that would be enough. But a court cannot follow the rules of a media trial. The Supreme Court has declared itself unconvinced by the PTI so far. It has not requested the questioning of witnesses or parsed the documents filed by the prime minister to uncover alleged corruption. Imran Khan, speaking after Thursday’s Supreme Court hearing, said the PTI would focus on proving the prime minister is a liar. Even if he does that, the question remains how big a crime lying turns out to be in the relevant legal circumstances. The PTI, to put it simply, is still struggling to find a case and needs to do better than it has so far. Not very long ago, Imran Khan seemed to think just the mention of the prime minister’s children in the Panama Papers was case closed. We are now finding out there is a large difference between political cases and legal cases.