PM falsely assumed as named in Panama Papers

ISLAMABAD: The legal czars of the opposition who joined their heads together to draft the TORs for the Panama Papers Commission made a major mistake by assuming that the name of the prime minister had appeared in the papers whereas the name of the PM does not appear anywhere and the International Consortium for Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) hasalso clarified this fact.

In fact, the name of the prime minister should have been included in the TORs because of his scions and not the otherwise as the opposition parties have exposed themselves by remaining oblivious to the fact that names of Hassan Nawaz, Hussain Nawaz and Maryam Nawaz appeared in the Panama Papers whereas the name of Nawaz Sharif did not figure anywhere.

The TORs, while defining the word respondent, state: “Respondent shall mean a Pakistani named in Panama Papers including the prime minister.” A bare reading of the definition clearly says that the name of the PM has appeared in Panama Papers whereas the facts are otherwise. Secondly, the ToRs further say, “A special law titled ‘Panama Papers (Inquiry and Trial) Act, 2016” be passed to facilitate the investigation into the assets, foreign and domestic, of the prime minister and all other Pakistanis named in the Panama Papers, which shall be formulated with the consensus of the opposition and shall contain provisions for….:”

The above clause of the ToRs also clearly states that the opposition’s legal minds assumed that the name of the PM has appeared in Panama Papers whereas the facts are different. It is worth mentioning here that the name of children of PM have appeared in Panama Papers but Nawaz Sharif’s name was never mentioned in the papers anywhere and this fact was clarified by the ICIJ as well. The opposition parties, out of excitement, forgot this basic fact which can nullify their entire ToRs. Either the opposition will have to re-write the ToRs or will face an embarassment if these ToRs are adopted as they are now.

It took one month for the opposition to come out with their consensus demands of an inquiry commission on the Panama Papers but even after one month, their facts were not correct or over excited for accountability of the PM, they made a basic mistake.