SC’s eagerness to monitor Sharifs’ cases raises questions

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court (SC) appears to be extraordinarily eager to pursue only Sharifs’ cases in the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) and the accountability courts, which raises questions about fair investigation and fair trial.

The SC’s latest decision of appointing Justice Ijazul Ahsan as the monitoring judge to supervise the implementation of its July 28th judgment, has surprised many including those belonging to the legal fraternity.

Instead of ensuring the independence and neutrality of NAB in all cases of corruption and misuse of authority, the SC’s monitoring judge will be overseeing NAB as well as the accountability courts only in Sharifs cases, which the apex court itself recently referred to the Bureau for filing of reference in accountability courts for trial.

Already eyebrows were raised over the SC’s July 28th decision of monitoring the process of Sharifs cases in the NAB and the accountability courts. But now the SC has appointed Justice Ijazul Ahsan as monitoring judge despite the fact that he was a member of the five-member bench, which had disqualified the former prime minister and directed NAB to file various references against Sharifs in the accountability courts.

This is a situation that brings into focus the issue of fair investigation and fair trial. Can the Supreme Court directly monitor and supervise any investigation in a case already decided by it? Similarly, how could the trial court be fair and independent under a Supreme Court’s monitor that too in cases framed and tried on the direction of the apex court? In this case, the monitoring judge for NAB and accountability courts is the one who decided to make references against Sharifs for trial.

For SCBA President Rashid A Rizvi said that it’s a case of negation of the principle “Not only must justice be done; it must also be seen to be done”. Talking to Geo News on Wednesday, he said if a SC judge was monitoring the proceedings of an accountability court, any verdict by the same court would be seen as having made under the pressure of the apex court.

He said, “It is held in different judgments that SC will never monitor or oversee even the police investigation.” He wondered how apex court of the country could go to the extent of monitoring trial of accountability court.

SCBA former president Kamran Murtaza also held similar views and said that for the same reasons he had been vehemently opposing continuous monitoring and praises of JIT by the apex court. He said that after so much praises and appreciation of JIT by the apex court, how accountability court judge, no matter how independent he was, would be able to dispense justice fairly. He said it would even be difficult for any high court judge not to get influenced from apex court’s monitoring. He said SC had bypassed law by passing this order.

Another SCBA ex-president Barrister Ali Zafar told Geo News that it was against Article 10A of the Constitution, which guarantees fair trial. He added that by fair trial they only meant that judge of the trial court must not be under any kind of pressure. He said when the apex court of the country was monitoring trial, the trial court judge would definitely be under pressure.

In its judgment, the apex court on July 28 directed the NAB to file references against Nawaz Sharif, Maryam Nawaz Sharif, Hussain Nawaz Sharif, Hassan Nawaz Sharif and Capt (R) Muhammad Safdar relating to Avenfield properties in London and some other matters.

The court had given NAB six weeks to file the references in an accountability court in Islamabad/Rawalpindi and decide the case in six months. The court had also requested the Chief Justice of Pakistan to nominate a judge of the apex court to supervise and monitor implementation of its judgment in letter and spirit and oversee the proceedings conducted by NAB and the Accountability Court in the matter.

Following the SC decision, the NAB on Monday last decided to file four references against Nawaz, his three children -- Maryam, Hussain and Hassan -- son-in-law MNA Capt (R) Safdar and former finance minister Ishaq Dar.

It is interesting to note here that during the hearing of the Panama Case, the Supreme Court repeatedly expressed its no confidence over institutions like NAB, FIA, FBR etc. There were indications that the apex court would direct the government to restructure and reform these institutions to make them independent, autonomous and depoliticised.

However, it was neither done by the apex court in its April 20 judgment nor directed in the July 28 verdict.