As the news go by, the anti-graft watchdog greenlights unfreezing of assets of an infamous personality, who was escorted in State-owned aircraft alongside the Prime Minister of Pakistan, earlier this year, with investors pinning hope on ‘Daronomics’— oft repeated under the name of accomplished writers who know far more of the economy than this laymanish effort by the scribe, to resurrect the cash-strapped economy of Pakistan. It stood in stark contrast to the low-key welcome. After being crowned as an absconder in a corruption case filed before the National Accountability Bureau, in 2017, paradoxically, albeit the trial Court managed to record statements of 42 witnesses in absentia, until recently this week the Court ordered the release of frozen assets.
A Vernerian Professor of English Law at Oxford, a man of his time, A.V. Dicey, and his dismissive references to such tweaks, now finds few adherents:
A land of settled government,
A land of just and old renown,
Where freedom slowly broadens down
From precedent to precedent
(You ask me, why…”)
Mukhtaran Mai stood tall. Gang-raped and paraded naked in public 21 years ago on the orders of a village council, Mukhtaran Mai became the symbol of resistance and courage in Pakistan when she raised voice against the brutality. Accountability refers to the processes, norms, and structures that hold the population and public officials legally responsible for their actions and that impose sanctions if they violate the law.
It is essential if systemic threats to the rule of law are to be corrected. Lately, the incumbent government soon after coming into power had made amendments to the NAB (Second Amendment) Bill, in order to further clip the wings of the Bureau. As the Court ordered that the case was beyond scope and jurisdiction, after the tweaks were made in the law.
You and your deductive reasoning.
Earlier this year, the National Assembly and the Senate passed the Elections (Amendment) Bill 2022 and the National Accountability (Second Amendment) Bill 2021, with an aim to bring the necessary reforms the coalition parties had promised. Under the amended law, it renders the body toothless to prosecute white collar crime by the public office holders.
The hallmarks of a regime which flouts the rule of law are all too familiar; the midnight knock on the door, the sudden disappearance, the short trial, the subjection of prisoners to genetic experiments, confession extracted by torture, the gulag and the concentration camp, the guest chambers, the practice of genocide or ethnic cleansing, the waging of aggressive war. The list is endless.
The recent amendments take away the president’s power to appoint the Chairman of the Bureau and instead made the Federal Government the appointing authority, thus making the Bureau subservient to the ruling elite. The amendments operate to pre-emptively exonerate the holders of public office and their co-conspirators from the offences of corruption and corrupt practices with which they stood charged in multiple references, protect them from being prosecuted for such offences involving malversation of national wealth, state assets and public money in future, and failed to secure these for the welfare and benefit of the people in gross disregard of the sacred trust reposed in these holders of public office by the people of Pakistan. Nonetheless, moving on, a joint session of Parliament approved the National Accountability (Second Amendment) Bill, 2021, in June this year.
The core of the existing principle is, I suggest, that all persons and authorities within the State, whether public or private, should be bound by and entitled to the benefit of laws publicly made, taking effect in the near future and be publicly administered in the courts. My formulation owes much to A.V. Dicey, but I think it also captures the fundamental truth propounded by the great English philosopher John Locke in 1690, that “wherever law ends, tyranny begins’.
Amidst the glaring examples, most of the amendments made in the NAO 1999 are person-specific, and as such, the amendment are designed to dissuade such persons from speaking the truth as per their conscience and, constitutes an unreasonable restriction on a person’s fundamental right to freedom of expression envisioned in Article 19 of the Constitution, whereas beyond borders, it is now an offence, under the amended Act, to give or offer an undue advantage to another person, with the intention to induce or reward, a public servant to improperly perform a public duty. Corruption is rightly called as one of the most insidious social phenomena. It erodes the trust in public institutions, hinders economic development and has a disproportionate impact on the enjoyment of human rights, particularly by people that belong to marginalised or disadvantaged groups.
Whereas, as captivating as it sounds, the preamble of the amended law aims at eradicating corruption, corrupt practices and hold5ng accountable all those persons accused of such practices. The government’s decision to steer the legislation into law was vehemently condemned by the legal community and public at large. Vested interests and corruption have hampered the efforts to deinstitutionalize persons and institutions.
The changes made in the prevailing law have failed to bring within its ambit, corrupt practices among private entities inter se and illegal gratification given to foreign officials to truncate the scope of triable offences from within its ambit. More so, after the introduction of Section 18C, now the NAB chief is required to conduct an inquiry into any case filed under NAO 1999 and shall make the report available to the accused before an investigation is launched, perhaps making it amenable to challenge in the courts of law, which would frustrate and hamper the investigation of cases in a non-partisan manner with no axe to grind.
Historical incidents of corrupt practices and modern theories of regulation of economic behaviour might evoke a sense of fascination, but there can be no doubt that in modern business and commerce, corruption has a devastating and crippling effect. The public entertains a range of views, not all consistent (one minute they are senile and out of touch, the next the very people to conduct a detailed and searching inquiry; one minute port gorged dinosaurs imposing savage sentences on hapless miscreants, the next wishy-washy liberals unwilling to punish anyone properly for anything although often unfavorable).
The hallmarks of a regime which flouts the rule of law are all too familiar; the midnight knock on the door, the sudden disappearance, the short trial, the subjection of prisoners to genetic experiments, confession extracted by torture, the gulag and the concentration camp, the guest chambers, the practice of genocide or ethnic cleansing, the waging of aggressive war. The list is endless.
