The top court’s bench hearing petitions on Panama leaks was dissolved as Chief Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali would lay down his robes on December 15 and would officially retire on the 31st. It will be reconstituted when Justice Saqib Nisar takes oath of next chief justice of Pakistan on January 1, 2017. After the induction of new member, the larger bench will hear the case afresh. The new CJ – who was part of the dissolved bench – may or may not sit on the new bench. The court, again proposed forming a commission for thorough investigation of Panama leaks case. The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) however threatened to boycott commission proceedings.The counsels of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his children and petitioners Tariq Asad and Jamaat-i-Islami gave consent for the commission, but two petitioners – the PTI and Awami Muslim League (AML) – opposed it.Interestingly, all the parties – including the PTI – on the second hearing of the case had given approval for setting up of a probe commission and also submitted their terms of reference (ToR). The chief justice said that if they declared a document of one party unauthentic or accept document of the other then the opposite party would contend they were not given opportunity to disapprove it. Advocate Naeem Bukhari, representing the PTI chief Imran Khan, asked the bench to decide the case itself saying they would accept the verdict. Salman Aslam Butt, representing the prime minister, told the SC, also said that whatever the court decides they would follow it.
However, he said that there was nothing against the prime minister in the documents filed by the petitioners, and also claimed there were no allegations directly and indirectly against him on the record. Akram Sheikh representing children of the PM said, as far as Hussain Nawaz and Hassan Nawaz were concerned, they were overseas Pakistanis. The court proceedings have been turned into a media trial and a vilification campaign has been started against the chief executive of the country, Sheikh said. Justice Jamali explained that this was the court of law and they were bound by the law, and “we have to follow it.†He said that under Article 184(3) the whole responsibility was on the court, while in the adversarial case the parties had to prove their case.The chief justice said that there was no precedent that once a judge lay down his robes then he sat on the bench. He said the bench has to be reconstituted. The case was adjourned until first week of January.
Later PTI chief Imran Khan rejected outright the idea of a commission and said he would boycott the proceedings if one was formed. It seems that all parties all playing politics on the issue and wasting the crucial time and the situation is worsening. Government should have come up with a strategy to clear all the mess, but apparently it has not taken it seriously. The whole world has moved on but the authorities in Pakistan are still stuck at Panama. It is high time politicians grew up and started taking right decisions in the best interest of the country and its masses and find durable solution of this issue.
