The SC judgment

It was a defining and extremely dramatic moment. More than a year after the Panama Papers were leaked, throwing the country’s politics into turmoil, the highest court in the land has spoken on allegations of corruption against Nawaz Sharif. It has ruled that the prime minister is disqualified from the National Assembly under Articles 62 and 63 of the constitution for failing to disclose “his un-withdrawn receivables from Capital FZE, UAE” in his 2013 nomination papers. As he said he would do all along, Nawaz Sharif has accepted the verdict and stepped down as prime minister. The matter was the honourable judges’ to decide and for Nawaz to follow. This is how it should be. Chaos and conflict would have been our lot otherwise. All along the way the legal and political opinion has been sharply divided over the affair and the resultant investigation – from the speed at which it was conducted to the methods it employed. Even the original judgment which set up the JIT had seen the same divisions. That this will continue to play out in the days and months ahead has sadly become inevitable because of all the controversy surrounding the case. The PML-N hinted at that in its response to the verdict when it decried the use of Articles 62 and 63. The vague language of these constitutional clauses and the way they can be interpreted in an open-ended manner to apply to just about every politician is going to be a source of heated debate among the commentariat. But the decision by the SC has been accepted and this must be seen as a positive sign.

It is creditable that the SC took up the Panama Leaks case and pursued it with such diligence. However, we all know there are other cases, some of them very sensitive ones, involving corruption, politics and controversy pending for long and standing for now before the Supreme Court. The question may now be asked by many if the court will handle these matters just as seriously and with the same level of determination. If it were felt that some citizens are more equal than others, the eternal questions that have bedeviled our polity are likely to reappear – including musings on what has been the common lot of elected PMs in our history.

Then there is the main underlying matter. We need a systematic approach and permanent reforms. We need institutionalised efforts and mechanisms to check corruption in all our institutions. Quite a few countries have worked towards this goal. Only if there are true reforms that stand the test of time can we hope to escape the menace of corruption plaguing us. The Supreme Court could have been a help and an inspiration here. The lead in doing this should have been taken by the political class, the government in particular, because it is their job. Neither this government nor those that preceded it, nor even those military dictators who came waving an anti-corruption sword and overthrew elected governments, ever did so. We have reached a perilous place because of this failure. Where we go from here, and how we do it, will perhaps make clear whether we have made history or repeated it.