Zardari's detention

PPP leader and former president Asif Ali Zardari is no stranger, as he himself has been saying, to arrest on corruption charges, and that he was not afraid of going to jail in the fake accounts case brought against him by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB). Unsurprisingly, however, the news of his arrest on Monday eclipsed the other major event: unveiling of the Economic Survey of Pakistan that paints a dismal picture of the economy for the financial year 2018-19. Still, the PML-N President Shahbaz Sharif, who along with his son Hamza Sharif (nabbed by NAB the next day) has faced similar action, took issue with the timing of the arrest saying it had been done to divert public attention from the "IMF prepared anti-people budget." And a furious PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari termed his father's detention "political victimization" by the PTI government which, of course, said it had nothing to do with either the arrest since NAB is an independent body, or the case itself which was instituted in 2015, long before its assumption of power. But it is difficult to fathom the urgency with which NAB has taken that step considering Zardari had been cooperating with the legal process, regularly appearing before the relevant courts whenever required.
Understandably perturbed over the development, Bilawal held a press conference to vent his anger raising several issues directly or indirectly related to the arrest declaring it a negation of Article 10-A of the Constitution that guarantees the right to fair trial to all citizens. NAB, however, had moved only after the Islamabad High Court (IHC) cancelled Zardari's pre-arrest bail, and refrained from taking into custody his sister Faryal Talpur, co-accused in the same case, despite cancellation of her bail because her arrest warrants were not issued till then. That though is not the end of the road for them; they can go into appeal in the Supreme Court against the orders of the IHC and seek relief. As regards the issue of bias in NAB's approach, the PPP has a point. There is the example of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, who faced protracted litigation in the apex court and later before a NAB accountability court. Yet he was not arrested until the court convicted him in the Avenfield reference case. Zardari, on the other hand, has been arrested even though NAB is yet to file a reference against him. Surely, there are other examples, such as that of Shahbaz Sharif, former senior Punjab minister Aleem Khan, Sharjeel Memon and Sindh Assembly Speaker Agha Siraj Durrani who have been meted out similar treatment. But the PPP and its supporters are not so wrong when they rake up some unsavoury events from the past to complain of an institutional bias against the party and compare the manner in which NAB has proceeded in cases involving top leaders of the two major opposition parties.
These parties blame the government for using the NAB law instituted by a military regime. True, Gen Musharraf's government introduced the NAB Ordinance to punish politicians who refused to fall in line. It is also true that after his departure, first the PPP and then PML-N came to power. Yet they made no effort to remove NAB's arbitrary power to arrest a suspect without substantive evidence that can stand in a court of law, as well as some other objectionable provisions, for which they are now paying the price. It is about time the opposition parties in Parliament took interest in the government proposals for making necessary amendments in this controversial accountability law.