Panama leak Case Proceedings - JIT Report, News, Updates And Discussion

[Farah Sohail]

Articles 62, 63 apply to public conduct: Justice Khosa

ISLAMABAD: The top court’s senior judge Justice Asif Saeed Khosa has declared that provisions of Articles 62 and 63 of the Constitution apply to a person’s public conduct – that affects others – rather than his private conduct not affecting generality of the populace.

Under Article 62(1)(f) of the Constitution, a person cannot be qualified as member of the national or provincial legislatures, if he is not ‘Sadiq and Ameen’ – truthful and trustworthy.

Two years ago, Justice Khosa in Ishaq Khan Khakwani case had described the words ‘Sadiq’ and ‘Ameen’ as obscure and impracticable and had also talked about ‘nightmares of interpretation and application that they involved’.

However, in his 192-page dissenting note in Panamagate case, Justice Khosa has discussed in detail the applicability of Articles 62 and 63 of the Constitution and tried to settle the longstanding debate on the applicability of the terms.

Justice Khosa says that some provisions of Article 62 of the Constitution certainly contain strong moral overtones but those provisions introduced into the Constitution by a military dictator [General Ziaul Haq] have not been undone by the popularly elected parliaments in the last many decades.

He says as long as the said provisions are a part of the Constitution, the courts are obliged not only to decide matters according to the same but also to enforce them whenever called upon to do so.

“Apart from that if honesty in holders of public offices is a moral issue then one needs not be apologetic about enforcing such a constitutional obligation and if the people at large start ignoring the moral prerequisites in public life then there would be no better forum than the courts … to insist upon the values and ethos of the Constitution,” he notes.

He says one must not forget that the so-called moral provisions of Articles 62 and 63 of the Constitution are meant to be enforced even against those who claim to have popular support or who have already demonstrated their popular endorsement.

“…And thus, popular support or endorsement of the person concerned has absolutely nothing to do with enforcement of those provisions of the Constitution,” he adds.

Justice Khosa says the provisions lay down the threshold for entering into or retaining an elective public office and the courts of the country are mandated to apply and enforce the said thresholds.

“Sitting at the apex of judicial authority in the country, this court is the ultimate guardian not only of the letter but also the spirit of the Constitution even where a section of the society may have some reservations against some provisions of the Constitution,” he writes.

Giving reason for incorporation of the qualifications regarding being ‘Sadiq’ and ‘Ameen’ in Article 62 through an amendment of the Constitution, Justice Khosa observes that in the parts of the world where democracy is entrenched the requirements of honesty, integrity, rectitude and probity in those who aspire for or hold representative public offices or other positions are well understood and insisted upon.

“In such parts of the world public morality is treated differently from private morality and a person in high public office found or caught indulging in an immoral behaviour or undesirable conduct is seldom spared and that is why in order to avoid the ensuing shame and dishonor, he more often than not, resigns or withdraws from the scene on his/her own,” he notes.

Unfortunately, he says, that kind of character is generally not demonstrated in our part of the world as yet and that is why qualifications like ‘honest’ and ‘ameen’ and the likes of them had been codified and incorporated in our Constitution and the relevant election laws so as to provide a constitutional and legal basis and mechanism for getting rid of such elements.

https://tribune.com.pk/story/1390538/articles-62-63-apply-public-conduct-khosa/

 

[PakSword]

Billi bohot jald thailay se bahar ajyegi !!

بلی تھیلے سے ہی نہیں، آپے سے بھی باہر آگئی ​

Question: In 69 years of Pakistan's existence, can anyone give one example of credible and meritorious SCP decision involving ashrafiya and implicating them in crime and specially in Sharif's case?

No.

Would Nisar consult Nawaz or Maryam or Hassan or Hussain before finalization of the names?

Hehehe..

And SECP's member will be appointed after consultation with
...
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.
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Ishaq Dar

yeeeeaaaa

 

[fatman17]

THE SUPREME COURT VERDICT IN THE PANAMA PAPERS CASE HAS IRREVOCABLY DAMAGED THE SHARIF BRAND

The Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) is celebrating the Supreme Court’s decision in the Panama Papers case. I should have put celebrating in inverted commas, but I didn’t to give the reader not just a sense of deep irony but also of how the prime minister, Mian Nawaz Sharif, has survived, in a technical sense, by the skin of his teeth.

But the injury is grave, no matter how one looks at it and no matter how some would like to spin it.

This is what the Supreme Court has done: Two judges have convicted Nawaz Sharif. Yes, convicted. As per their judgments, the prime minister stands disqualified for not being sadiq and ameen. The other three judges on the bench, whose decisions are being celebrated, stopped short of convicting Sharif but have indicted him nonetheless. There’s enough here to warrant a Joint Investigation Team (JIT) to probe this matter in 60 days, updating the court every 15 days on its progress.

If the PMLN thinks a conviction from two judges and an indictment from the other three is cause for celebration, you can imagine, dear reader, how grave the situation might be for the Sharifs.

But wait, we have to contend with the legal minds. Some of them will say that dissent is not the operative part of the judgment. In other words, the decision of the two dissenting judges doesn’t legally count. Technically, they are right. But only technically. From every other angle they are wrong. That makes this view reductive. It’s like a lesser team getting lucky in a few overs on a rainy day and winning on the basis of Duckworth-Lewis. It’s a win but… you get my drift.

What about the majority view, the three judges who didn’t disqualify the prime minister? Did they give Sharif a clean chit? Did they say the P.M. and his children mounted a clear defense against the allegations they face? No. In fact, they have raised multiple questions, and investigating those questions is what the JIT is all about. Put another way, they have said: we do not believe that the P.M. can or should be disqualified at this stage, though he has been unable to mount a full defense and we believe there’s enough to merit further investigations. The probe could either clear the P.M. or cause the Supreme Court’s implementation bench to consider otherwise.

There’s another view too, apropos of the JIT: it is neither here nor there. How can officers of Grade-19 or -20 or -21 investigate the powerful P.M. and his children? Ironically, this view tells us precisely what is wrong with this state, why it is important to change that and, more importantly, why the Sharifs may not be the best sociopolitical conduit for that change, thrive as they do (and having thrived in the past) on the back of a system of patronage where institutions can play no effective role.

On the political side this view has been pushed by former president Asif Ali Zardari. He should know.

But the bigger injury in this whole affair has been to the Sharifs’ political narrative. From the ’90s onward, the family has presented itself—in contrast to Benazir Bhutto and Asif Zardari—as clean and hardworking sons of the soil, honest businessmen and politicians, a family that doesn’t stash its wealth abroad. And it worked, coupled with pork-barrel infrastructure development schemes. That has been put to rest. They are now squarely in the company of the PPP family without even the advantage of Oxford and Cambridge.

The real question remains: will it impact the hustings? The cynics say no. Recent by-poll results show the PMLN leading. A recent survey of Lahore’s three constituencies indicates that corruption is not the top issue and the PMLN still leads, though at least 30 percent of the electorate is a floating vote that could be picked up by rivals if they are smart. The PMLN has mastered the patronage game. There’s still too much of the old world left among the voters, and the common man himself is either corrupt or caught in the vortex of the system’s binding structures. For the opposition, notably the Pakistan Tehreek-e Insaf, itself relying on ‘electables,’ it will be difficult, if not impossible, to break the PMLN’s stranglehold.

But things can and do change. As Adam Gopnik argued in a recent New Yorker article: “whatever is happening usually does stop happening, and something else happens in its place.” It takes time, sure. We are also almost always more concerned about the immediate than the longer trajectory, sure. But change (as also war) comes slowly and imperceptibly.

For now, the Sharifs might survive even the JIT. They might even win the next elections. But this judgment has put paid to their narrative. To me that’s a graver injury. If the PMLN wants to celebrate that, sure: be my guest.

Haider is editor of national-security affairs at Capital TV. He was a Ford Scholar at the Program in Arms Control, Disarmament and International Security at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution, Washington, D.C. He tweets @ejazhaider

 

[Farah Sohail]

Article 62 ensures clean leadership at top: Justice Khosa

ISLAMABAD: Justice Asif Saeed Khosa, who wrote a minority judgement in the Panama Papers case disqualifying Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, has described Article 62 of the Constitution as a recipe for cleansing the fountainhead of the state’s authority and ensuring clean leadership at the top.

Article 62 spells out qualifications for becoming members of parliament.

“Its (Article 62) faithful adherence trickles down to un-pollute the authority,” Justice Khosa wrote.

On Thursday, a five-judge Supreme Court bench headed by Justice Khosa had ordered the prime minister and his children to face further investigation by a specially constituted six-man joint investigation team (JIT).

On Friday, the Supreme Court office dispatched copies of the 548-page judgement in the Panama Papers case to the Federal Investigation Agency, National Accountability Bureau, Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan, State Bank of Pakistan, Inter-Services Intelligence and Military Intelligence — the departments whose nominees will be included in the JIT.

Justice Khosa said that if the conditions suggested in Article 62 were achieved then the legislative and executive limbs of the state were purified at the top and such purity at the top necessarily trickled down to the bottom as well. Thus this recipe ensures clean leadership at the top which may legislate for and administer this “land of the pure” (Pakistan) as true delegates of the sovereignty and authority of Almighty Allah.

“This also appears to be the constitutional design and as long as Article 62 is part of the Constitution, the courts of the country are under a sworn commitment to enforce it,” the 192-page minority judgement said.

Citing a number of judgements, including the one in the 2010 Nawabzada Iftikhar Ahmad Khan case, Justice Khosa recalled that the Supreme Court had in the case held that parliament of any country was one of its noblest, honourable and important institutions making not only the policies and the laws for the nation but also shaping and carving its very destiny.

“And here is a man who being constitutionally and legally debarred from being its member, managed to sneak into it by making a false statement on oath and by using bogus, fake and forged documents polluting the piety of this pious body. His said conduct demonstrates not only his callous contempt for the basic norms of honesty, integrity and even for his own oath but also undermines the sanctity, the dignity and the majesty of the august House,” the verdict said.

The case in hand (Panama Papers leaks), Justice Khosa observed, was not about asininity or blindness of any law, but the prime minister and his children wanted an asinine and blindfolded acceptance of their explanations in respect of acquisition of the four upscale London flats.

The prime minister held very high public offices when his dependent children and through them he himself came in possession of the expensive properties in London and, thus, he was under a legal, moral and political obligation to account for and explain his position in that regard, Justice Khosa said.

The prime minister, the judge regretted, had offered no explanation in respect of possession or acquisition of the properties in his two addresses to the nation.

Like Caesar’s wife, the prime minister should also be above suspicion, Justice Khosa said, adding that in all his speeches, the prime minister had claimed that the entire record in respect of acquisition of the relevant properties was available and would be produced when asked for in any inquiry, but before the Supreme Court he not only detached himself from his children in respect of those properties but also failed to produce any record explaining how the relevant properties had been “purchased” or acquired as claimed by him.

He also cited excerpts from William Shakespeare’s play “Merchant of Venice” and explained that the punch line was “wrest once the law to your authority: To do a great right, do a little wrong”.

“Fortunately for me, there is no wresting the law to my authority and no little wrong is to be done by me to do a great right in the matter of issuing a declaration against the prime minister because the original jurisdiction of the Supreme Court under Article 184(3) of the Constitution has already been exercised by this court in such matters in other cases,” Justice Khosa said.

https://www.dawn.com/news/1328540

If there was a person, with even an ounce of honor and respect, he would have died in shame, after reading all this.. But ..to our misfortune....we are talking abt Nawaz Sharif here

 

[fatman17]

If they needed help from relevant quarters and further investgation..they should have atleast suspended or taken all powers from heads of these instituitions..just like Justce Khosa and Gulzar have taken powers form chairman NAB, while also they have disqualified the PM......majority judges should have atleast suspended the PM, if not disqualified him....and suspended Chairman NAB, for fair inqury..... Justice Qazi Faiz Isa and Amir Hani Muslim had also suspended many members of NAB, in other case in SC, recently.. It means tht SC has the power to do it... So, when they have the power, and they themselves say Qamar Zaman Chaudhry being chairman NAB is like legalising corruption.. Yet not removing or suspending him, neither taking any powers of him as Chairman, and asking members from his instituition to be part of JIT, nominated by the same Chairman.... Same goes for FBR... Seriously... Does thisj judgment make any sense?

Even Justice Khosa and Gulzar have given some explanation..as to why they are not sending case of Chairman NAB to supreme judicial council, themselves....because of jurisdiction issues, and since Justice Khosa is himself part of tht...so its a conflict..hence avoided sending him to supreme judicial council himself... I think majority judges didnt even bother to give any explanation as to ....why are they not sending NAB chairman to SJC?

However.. Justice Khosa, despite not sending Chairman NAB to SJC....then in the same judgment say...tht since chairman NAB is compromised....we take all relevant powers from him, as chairman NAB, in cases against PM, and ask the NAB to report directly to a bench of SC.....

Why couldnt the majority judges..do atleast..this much or suspend him as Chairman NAB, just like Justce Qazi faiz Isa and Justce Amir hani, did with members of NAB in another case?

On hindsight we can make many conclusions.

 

[fatman17]

I Have read dissenting notes by Justice Khosa and Gulzar...amd court order, operative part of main judgment

Good for you as you are in the minority.

 

[IceCold]

Apparently the verdict was leaked to Nawaz Shareef before announcement and altered after the verdict was sealed. Only agency which such powers are non other then ISI. With ISI under Naveed Akhtar who has got family ties with Shareef family through non other then that bitch Maryam Safdar, who got clean chit through this, who is groomed by international establishment as Pakistan new PM (even the thoughts of that make me puke), rabbit hole goes much deeper. No wonder Gen Rizwan Akhtar was removed in haste.

There is no doubt in my mind now the way 2013 election was rigged by then Army cheif to bring their own pet dog which they raised, who from time to time bark at them as well, the Nawaz Shareef , another such effort was done by Army high command to save him this time around.

I have all respect to armed forces of Pakistan but there is no holly cows in this country anymore who are above state. I agree with Aitezaz Ahsan over ISPR tweet. He is right.

Army credibility is at stake here. They must start investigations pronto before more noises starts to come out and court marshall those who miss used their authority to save Nawaz Shareef. There is no doubt there are black sheep within top achelon of power circles in Army.

What did atiZaz Ahsan said? That really pissed the army that ispr had to come out and clear it

 

[QatariPrince]

What did atiZaz Ahsan said? That really pissed the army that ispr had to come out and clear it

DG ISI has family relations with Nawaz Sharif (And Aitazaz Ahsan is right)

https://twitter.com/x/status/855706887374856192

https://twitter.com/x/status/855706897298604032

https://twitter.com/x/status/855706898821070849

https://twitter.com/x/status/855706905494159360

Billi bohot jald thailay se bahar ajyegi !!

20 25 sal ho gaye. Check kero kahin thaila dosri side say phatta hua tu nahi aur billi bhaag gai ho?

 

[PakSword]

 

[Farah Sohail]

2 ne tu kar hi li thee jurrat... Bas ek aur judge ke jurrat karnay ki kasar reh gayi

 

[newb3e]

2 ne tu kar hi li thee jurrat... Bas ek aur judge ke jurrat karnay ki kasar reh gayi

lols Farah you are seriously Naive!!! you seriously think 2 judges suddenly grew a pair and went against Nawaz Shareef! this 3/2 is all bs planned bs! this 3/2 judgement just makes our screwed up judiciary system looks good! they just polished turd and presented in a better way!

3 naa karo 2 haan karo awaam cockroach hai bawakoof bana dain gay!

 

[Farah Sohail]

lols Farah you are seriously Naive!!! you seriously think 2 judges suddenly grew a pair and went against Nawaz Shareef! this 3/2 is all bs planned bs! this 3/2 judgement just makes our screwed up judiciary system looks good! they just polished turd and presented in a better way!

3 naa karo 2 haan karo awaam cockroach hai bawakoof bana dain gay!

Have you read these...dissenting judgments in full?

 

[graphican]

Ordinal verdict of Panama Leak Case in Audio.

 

[newb3e]

Have you read these...dissenting judgments in full?

not full!! but kuch kuch!!

yes they called him a chor!!! but as per plan gave him time,JIT banay ge lols fine 60 din baad JIT kia bolay gee we need more time sir! okay take your time dear! and eventually MIyan sabh ka tenure khatam aur woh bag pack kar keh jeddah ya london nikal jaye gay!!!na aik paisa wapis aye ga na kuch!!!

this is Pakistan!!!

 

[Farah Sohail]

not full!! but kuch kuch!!

yes they called him a chor!!! but as per plan gave him time,JIT banay ge lols fine 60 din baad JIT kia bolay gee we need more time sir! okay take your time dear! and eventually MIyan sabh ka tenure khatam aur woh bag pack kar keh jeddah ya london nikal jaye gay!!!na aik paisa wapis aye ga na kuch!!!

this is Pakistan!!!

You know...I am most against NROS and talk frequently against them... And will continue to do so...

I know, we have very very few good and honest ppl, left amongst us, esp at the top....

But then, everyone is answerable for his own deeds and actions..

I honestly believe..tht not every one is a sell out.. Yes..there are very few such ppl but there are..

Consider ourselves as part of the bench... Wouldnt we have done the same...as Justice Khosa and Justice Gulzar.....irrespective of what others say? Would it have been an NRO?

What majority judges said..is none of the concern of these two judges......they stood for what they thought is right.. What else could they do..if others didnt agree with these two? I now think delay in the decision was due to this only.. Maybe these two judges tried to convince others...regd their verdict....but in the end..they might have thought..just let it be.... Otherwise there was no reason for such an unusual delay in this verdict....

If they were part of any plan or NRO...they wouldnt have been as rigid, and used such derogatory words for PM and his family in their verdict... They could have given the same verdict, which they did..while being a little bit more diplomatic... Their judgment is unusually harsh, in its tone..and was very surprising for me too.... It gave a person, like me, who hates sharif family to the core...shocks after shocks..with each line..tht I read...tht could someone really write such things...in a legal document..?..tht too, against a sitting PM?