Justice in the dock

Maryam Nawaz's press conference in Lahore on July 6, 2019 has driven a coach and six through the accountability process. A video was aired at the press conference purportedly showing Accountability Court Judge Arshad Malik in conversation with Nasir Butt, a Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) activist currently based in London. The explosive part of the video, as reported in the media, shows the judge admitting to Nasir Butt that the corruption and money laundering charges against Nawaz Sharif could not be proved due to lack of evidence. Considering that Nawaz Sharif has been sentenced by Judge Arshad Malik to seven years imprisonment in the Al-Azizia reference and is currently languishing in jail, the revelation shocked the country and set off a virtual firestorm of accusation and counter-accusation between the government and the PML-N.
This exchange ran along by now familiar lines, except for the specifics of the issue under discussion. Maryam Nawaz naturally saw the visual-audio 'confession' by the judge as vindication of the claim that Nawaz Sharif was innocent and the target of political victimisation. The PTI government's point woman and Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Information (for all intents and purposes the Information Minister) Dr Firdous Ashiq Awan declared in two press conferences on the day and the day after that the government would carry out a forensic audit of the video, which she declared 'fake' in the same breath even before the forensic audit! Her Information Ministry also induced Pemra to issue notices to 21 TV channels for airing the unedited press conference and video.
The next day after Maryam Nawaz's explosive revelations, Judge Arshad Malik mounted his own defence, which ran along the following lines. Nasir Butt is an old acquaintance/friend of the judge from Rawalpindi. The video is a 'doctored' version put together by juxtaposing separate conversations from different times, and that he had acted fairly and justly by convicting Nawaz Sharif in one reference and acquitting him in another. So far so good. But then the judge opened up another controversy by claiming he had been approached by the PML-N to bribe him and after refusal, threaten him and his family if he found against Nawaz Sharif. Maryam Aurangzeb, the PML-N spokesperson, immediately pounced on this statement by raising the perfectly logical question why the judge had not revealed these approaches before. Why now, when the proverbial cat was out of the bag? After all, the honourable justice has claimed a very serious breach of the law, but only after the video revelations and as part of his 'defence'. Maryam Nawaz on the other hand interpreted the judge's 'defence' as a tacit admission of the existence of the video conversation/s. It may be recalled that former judge of the Islamabad High Court Justice Shaukat Siddiqui had made startling claims in a speech that he had been subjected to pressure by the intelligence agencies to give verdicts according to their wish. Justice Siddiqui came out with this revelation of his own accord and not due to any other exigency. Of course this led to his removal, but the point remains that any attempt by any quarter to pervert the true course of justice is not just condemnable, it should in principle attract the most severe penalties under the law to put a stop to such manoeuvring. Of course the unanswered question in this regard remains: who will bell the cat?
There are also unsubstantiated reports in the media that the judge claimed he was pressurised if not blackmailed into giving the guilty verdict and prison sentence to Nawaz Sharif. Now demands are echoing from all sides to get to the bottom of the matter. While Dr Awan promises a government investigation, under the circumstances such a government effort may not be credible, since the government is seen as a 'party' in the controversy. Similarly, the results of any forensic audit will only be acceptable if it is clearly independent of the sitting government. On present trends/statements emanating from the government, this does not appear likely, thereby arguably opening the gates to more controversies and back and forth between the government and the PML-N.
The PML-N and the PPP have requested the Supreme Court and the Chief Justice of Pakistan to take notice of the issue. Jamaat-i-Islami's Siraj-ul-Haq has demanded a judicial commission to look into the matter. So far, there is discreet silence from the highest judicial institutions.
Surely such a controversy is deeply damaging to the respect, dignity and integrity of the judiciary. It only takes one negative instance to erode years of good jurisprudence carved out by the judiciary. Not that our judiciary, with due respect, has not had its share of controversy and charges of miscarriage of justice laid at its door in our history. Precisely for this reason, the judicial apex institutions need to step in to conduct a fair, above board inquiry into the Judge Arshad Malik affair. If any of the charges and counter-charges are proved as a result, the perpetrators, no matter who they are or on which side of this divide, must receive their comeuppance. Otherwise the PML-N and the opposition as a whole will feel its claims of political victimisation in the name of accountability have been borne out in this case, an outcome that will cast dark clouds of uncertainty and doubt on the whole architecture of accountability inherited from the Musharraf regime and drag the judiciary as an institution too into the swamp.
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