Pakistani courts, laws fail to check slander

Sharifs won’t get anything in defamation case against IK

ISLAMABAD: The Sharif brothers are said to be seriously considering suing Imran Khan for defamation over his latest allegation of having received Rs10 billion offer from the former to keep quiet on the Panama issue. 

However, any such legal course won’t work even in case of the influential rulers. Poor record of defamation laws’ application here makes Pakistan a perfect country where slander of any sort against anyone can be done without any fear of being penalized. 

Slander against politicians and bureaucrats by other politicians and media is a routine practice here. Without any evidence, any political leader, including prime minister, cabinet ministers and MPs, could be publicly dubbed as corrupt, traitor, looter, etc.

Even during the recent years, the sitting and retired senior judges, including the chief justice of Pakistan, have been the target of media and politicians’ insult but hardly in any case defamation laws of the country worked to check such a slander. 

One such case is pursued by former CJP Justice (retd) Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry against Imran Khan but despite passing of over two years, there is no hope the case will be decided soon.

Like other civil suits, which take decades to decide here, the defamation cases are no exception. No matter how serious defamation is done, there is hardly any case study where the slanderer is conclusively punished and fined in a manner that it could serve as deterrence for others.

Instead, here the situation is altogether different which encourages people to level any kind of allegation against their opponents whether in politics, media or otherwise. Of late, the Editor-in-Chief of Jang Group and Geo Mir Shakil-ur-Rahman won a historic libel case against ARY in London. However, similar cases filed in Pakistani courts are far from conclusion.

The London High Court in the defamation case against ARY Network ruled that it had run a vile campaign against Editor-in-Chief Jang and Geo group Mir Shakil-ur-Rahman, falsely accusing him of being a traitor of Pakistan, Indian agent, RAW agent, American agent, CIA agent, MOSSAD agent, and committing blasphemy.

The London High Court's verdict in the defamation case was a historic win for the Jang and Geo group and its editor-in-chief as ARY had admitted that it could not prove its accusations with evidence, clearing Jang and Geo group and its editor-in-chief of all the allegations. The court ordered ARY to pay £3 million in damages and costs.

However, ARY failed to comply with the court's orders after which British media regulator Ofcom revoked ARY Network licences and shut down three TV channels owned by the network in the UK.