Playing the Corruption Card – by Anas Muhammad
By Anas Muhammad
On 12 October 1999, General Prevez Musharraf ouster the government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, in a non violent military coup. The reason given by Musharraf was the rampant corruption under Nawaz Sharifs regime. Although the same “corruption card” has been used previously, to disrupt the tenures of two Benazir Bhutto’s and a Nawaz Sharif’s previous government, to change the political setup before either Prime Minister starts to exert their muscle over the almighty military.
The judiciary has always been there, as a sidekick of dictators and those who disrupts democracy, to back their extra constitutional actions with a legal cover. Many judicial experts believe that the judiciary, especially the Supreme Court, has stepped over of its legal limits to facilitate dictatorships by granting them with the authority of legislative powers. This crime was also committed by the current judicial setup and the current Chief Justice of Pakistan.
Recently the Supreme Court of Pakistan struck down the amnesty for politicians and bureaucrats, which The Guardian labeled as “Supreme court Chaos.” It was a Chaos indeed, blurring the line between the judiciary and the executive, and very likely causing a tussle for powers between the two pillars of the state.
Just as this Supreme Court was gaining some trust amongst the people, blinded by its newly gained fame and popularity, it started making one after another judgment that was clearly an attempt to overstep its constitutional jurisdiction. Some experts have noted that Supreme Court’s decision to intervene into governments taxation policy in the budget and fixing price ceiling for sugar were just a few examples of judiciary interfering in the executive matters.
According to an article in The Guardian:
The judgment reeked of politics, designed to unseat an unpopular president halfway through his term.
Asma Jahangir, a prominent human rights activist, has also hinted at the Supreme Court’s “encroachment” into executive business. In her recent article she stated:
The judgment goes much further. It has assumed a monitoring rather than a supervisory role over NAB cases.
Although she supports the verdict against the NRO (National Reconciliation Ordinance), she seems to be skeptical of the actions the supreme court has described in its verdict.
Is it the function of the superior courts to sanctify the infamous NAB ordinance, the mechanism itself and to restructure it with people of their liking? It is true that the public has greater trust in the judiciary than in any other institution of the state, but that neither justifies encroachment on the powers of the executive or legislature nor does it assist in keeping an impartial image of the judiciary
This judicial activism is not very helpful in strengthening democracy, especially when it is very selective, and biased in some cases. For instance, the Supreme Court bypassed its norms and procedures to hear an appeal by former PM Nawaz Sharif, for a case he was convicted more than eight years ago, and acquitted him. While on the other hand only targeting President Asif Ali Zardari, and his cases, out of more than 8000 cases that were under the parameters of NRO. The New York Times also pointed at this in their article:
Of most interest to the 17-member bench, led by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, was the question of who had authorized the return of $60 million in suspect gains by Mr. Zardari to offshore companies in his name after the government withdrew criminal proceedings against him in Switzerland last year.
As some right-wing segments of Pakistani society, media, judiciary, and army might not like President Zardari’s stance on militancy, and his closeness to the Americans, they might be tempted to repeat history by overthrowing another elected government for the sake of their politics and ideology.
While The Guardian also came to the same conclusion:
Who profits from this? Rightwing members of the senior judiciary; sections of the military and intelligence establishment who regard Mr Zardari as too pro-American and want to stop him cracking down on the Afghan Taliban; and the opposition leader Nawaz Sharif. His own previous conviction was not covered by the NRO, but he profited from Ms Bhutto’s return to Pakistan by coming home from exile himself.
Now the ball is in the politicians’ court, and it is up to them to handle the situation in a way that the establishment and some extreme right-wing players can’t take advantage and destabilize the current government or weaken President Zardari. Any mishandling can end up being catastrophic for the democracy, and ultimately the security of Pakistan.
The judiciary needs to understand this and operate in its constitutional parameters, because any harm to democracy can also lead to restriction to their own freedom, as they faced under Musharraf era. They should make sure that the corruption doesn’t become just another card to ouster another democratically elected government, but rather is used to promote transparency, and the scrutiny should not be limited to the politicians, but also the bureaucrats, judges, military, media-journalists, and highly controversial institutions like the National Accountability Bureau.
kaut b kaala, moo b kaala, dil b kaaaaaaaala
wah ray CHEAP JUSTICE, buhat aala buhat aala
a well-researched and thought -provoken article with covincing arguments.
Rs3 bn loan outstanding since ’98 – Ahsan terms it ‘technical default’, no loan write-off ever sought Sunday, December 20, 2009 By Rauf Klasra http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=214283
ISLAMABAD: A loan of Rs3 billion against the Sharif brothers remains outstanding despite a lapse of about ten years when the physical assets of four industrial units — Ittefaq Foundries, Brothers Steel, Ittefaq Brothers and Ilyas Enterprises — were surrendered to nine lending banks, who haven’t got a penny back since 1998.
The Sharif brothers were lauded in the national press in 1998 for surrendering their physical assets to nine banks but in actual terms, these banks did not get a single penny back after one of their (Sharif’s) own directors moved the court and got a stay order against selling of these assets. The stay order in favour of Ittefaq Brothers remains effective till date.
Meanwhile, the representatives and legal experts of these nine banks are said to have recently met at Lahore to decide a new course of action to recover the loans from the Sharif brothers who have been shown as “defaulters” of the banks. The National Bank of Pakistan is the worst affected bank with a stuck up loan of Rs1.5 billion. Earlier, in his capacity as Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif in a highly charged televised address to the nation, had announced to surrender all the physical assets of Itefaq Foundries, Brothers Steels, Ittefaq Brothers and Ilyas Enterprises to the nine banks, whom the Sharifs reportedly owed Rs3.09billion.
The process of selling the Ittefaq Foundries was stopped when one of the relatives of Sharif Brothers moved an application in the Lahore High Court in 2005 and the matter is still pending with the courts without any payment to the concerned banks.
According to official documents available with The News, in 1998, the directors of Ittefaq Group offered to surrender these units to settle the claims of all the banks instead of making cash payments to settle their accounts. Nawaz Sharif as the prime minister had then announced to hand over these assets to the Lahore High Court to monitor the sale of assets of his units.
The names of directors of Ittefaq Foundries are Mian Tariq Shafi, Mian Javed Shafi, Mian Abbas Shafi, Mian Riaz Miraj, Mian Shahbaz Sharif, Mian Yousuf Aziz and Mian Nawaz Sharif. Likewise, the directors of Brothers Steels included Mian Yousuf Aziz, Mian Yahya Siraj, Mrs Nusrat Shahbaz, Mian Naseem Tariq, Mian Memoona Idris, and Hussain Barkat. The directors of Ittefaq Brothers were Mian SHahbaz Sharif, Mian Mohamamd Idris and Mian Pervaiz Shafi.
According to the official papers, Shahbaz Sharif and Nawaz Sharif owed bank loan of Rs1.5billion to National Bank of Pakistan, HBL Rs717million, UBL Rs340million, MCB Rs239million, Ist Punjab Mudraba Rs110millino, Bank of Punjab Rs61million, ADBP Rs58million, PICIC Rs17million and ICP Rs8million.
The papers reveal that when the assets of these four defaulting units were surrendered to the LHC, in a bid to settle their claims all the banks unanimously agreed to get the court order to this deal.
The documents showed that while hearing this application under section 284, the Lahore High Court ordered to constitute a committee comprising 3 members, a representative of banks, a chartered accountant and an advocate being the court representative. The mandate of the committee was to take the possession of the said units of the Ittefaq Group, to protect and preserve their assets and to auction them through court procedure.
Under the said committee a bid of Rs2.48billion was received which was about half a billion rupees less than the actual loan money. The bid was submitted to the court in 2005. However, the final court order for auction has not been yet issued till today following the petition filed by some of directors of the Ittefaq Group.
In 2006, committee member Iqbal Haider Rehman after his appointment as additional judge Lahore High Court was replaced by Pervaiz Akthar Malik, advocate and Kamran Amin NBP, due to change of his assignment in the banks, was replaced by Mr Salaim Ansar. Now this committee comprised Salim Ansar, Khajwa Abdul Qadir and Pervaiz Akhtar Malik.
The official papers show that since filing of the bid of Rs2.48billion with the court in 2005, duly accepted by all the banks and recommended by the committee, the matter was still stuck up at the Lahore High Court for an order and despite all efforts of the committee, no progress has been made. The documents show that several meetings of the creditor banks had been convened by NBP at Lahore where the legal experts other than the dealing councils of the banks were also invited to consider the alternative course of action to expedite this matter. However, legal complications have arisen to such an extent that no concrete solution of the problem could so far be unanimously adopted.
Talking to The News, president NBP Ali Raza confirmed that a sum of Rs1.5billion was outstanding against the Sharif brothers as the loan was yet to be settled. He said the physical assets were surrendered by the directors of these units but the court had yet to give its approval to the bidding price of Rs2.4billion obtained in 2005.
Talking to The News, PML-N spokesman MNA Ahsan Iqbal said that there was an understanding with the banks in 1998 and the physical assets were handed over to them as part of “settlement”. He said actually the Sharif brothers never got their loans written off and the matter was declared “technical default” after the banks were put under pressure during the second government of PPP to seek the payment of loans prematurely.
He said this was a sort of “technical default” and the cases later landed in the court.
Here is a perspective by Rauf Klasra on the charges of corruption and the nature of Pakistani media / establishment who always need a villain:
Corruption is the new jihadi word against democracy. Previously it was “Islam is in danger”.
It is us
By Nadeem F. Paracha
Demagogic claptrap still manages to pass as being Pakistan and Muslim history in the textbooks and on popular TV.
Across Pakistan’s history a number of politicians, lawyers, journalists, student leaders and party workers have bravely wrestled with the establishment’s civil, military and economic arms.
These arms have played every dirty trick in the book of destructive Machiavellian politics set into motion against democrats so the ‘establishment’ can retain a stagnant and largely reactionary political and economic status-quo; a status-quo that fears the pluralistic and levelling qualities of democracy.
Many from the higher echelons of society have prospered from this status-quo. They are always ready to ward off democracy through a synthetic brand of ‘patriotism’ concocted from overt displays of nationalistic chauvinism and politicised Islam.
Though they are quick to blame the masses for falling so easily for democratic parties’ ‘empty’ promises, the truth is, the same masses have been more susceptible to whatever hate-spewing gibberish and mythical brew these magicians have been feeding the people for decades in the name of history, Islam and patriotism.
This brew, present in the history books our children are taught, has been gradually turning the average Pakistani into a paranoid and pessimistic android who, as if instinctively, lets out his frustrations by pounding the democrats with cynical blows, also swinging wildly at Pakistan’s many enemies he is told are lurking within and outside its borders.
In this mangled discourse, the documented horrors of the long military dictatorships that this republic has suffered are conveniently forgotten; sometimes even by those in the political and journalistic circles who had struggled hard for a democratic setup; they suddenly seem to lose all their painfully cultivated tolerance and patience, once that democratic setup is revived.
No wonder, in this day and age, we are still debating whether democracy is right for Pakistan, and/or is it compatible with Islam. It is not surprising that such debates crop up in a nation constantly injected with a heavy dose of dubious history which begins not five thousand years ago with the Indus Valley Civilisation, but many centuries later with Muhammad Bin Qasim’s conquest of Sindh. In fact, some textbooks have had no qualms of completely bypassing logic by claiming that Qasim was actually the first Pakistani!
This history then cleverly ignores the many terrible intrigues and murders that were committed by a series of Muslim rulers against their own comrades and kin, sometimes in a fit of jealously and sometimes owing to pure power play. This historical narrative goes to work right away when we are quick to present ourselves as noble people who are incapable of murder, genocide and intrigue, and assert that it is actually other races and religions who have been targeting us.
We forget West Pakistan’s controversial role and the bloodbath that followed in the former East Pakistan. We forget how the founder of Pakistan was treated while on his death bed, as he lay lamenting how some of his closest colleagues couldn’t wait to see him die. We forget how a wily general calling himself a pious Muslim sent a popularly elected prime minister to the gallows on the feeblest of evidences.
We forget how an Islamic party being led by a renowned Islamic scholar was behind two of the most shameful acts of mass rioting against the Ahmadiya community. We forget how, long before Hindu fanatics tore down the Barbri Masjid in India, varied Islamic sects and sub-sects were busy going to war against one another in the streets of Lucknow (Muharram processions are banned in that city for over a decade now owing to Sunni-Shia and not Hindu-Muslim rivalry).
We forget the terrible sounds of the army’s tanks rolling into Balochistan (1962, 1973); and then in Sindh (1983), slaughtering a number of young Baloch and Sindhis, accusing them of treason, when all they wanted were their democratic rights. We forget the terrible decade-long armed action by the state against ‘Muhajirs’ in Karachi, in which whole families were wiped out.
We forget how our intelligence agencies schemed the downfall of one democratic government after another in the 1990s, all the while fattening scores of holy monsters many of whom are now blowing up our markets and mosques. There are many more of these horrid episodes in which Pakistanis killed Pakistanis and Muslims slaughtered Muslims.
Why is it so difficult then for us to understand that the mayhem rained on us today is by monsters like the home-grown Taliban? ‘It can’t be us. It can’t be Muslims,’ we say.
Back in 1971, very few Pakistanis were willing to advise Yahya Khan to get into a dialogue with rebelling Bengalis. But today, after years of unprecedented violence perpetrated by the Taliban, we have many politicians, TV hosts, and journalists suggesting a dialogue with men who one can’t even be described as human. These people’s minds and those of their followers have been influenced by all the concocted and mythical moments of glory, and of justified hatred in the name of religion and patriotism present in our historical discourse and the false memories that it has created in us.
Unfortunately such demagogic claptrap still manages to pass as being Pakistan and Muslim history in the textbooks and on popular TV.
http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspaper/columnists/nadeem-f-paracha-it-is-us
‘NAB tried to use ECP to proceed against Zardari’ Sunday, 20 Dec, 2009
http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/pakistan/03-nab-tried-to-use-ecp-to-proceed-against-zardari-ss-12
LAHORE: The Former Secretary of the Election Commission of Pakistan said that the National Accountability Bureau tried to use ECP to proceed against Benazir Bhutto and Asif Zardari in 2005.
During an interview with DawnNews, Kanwar Dilshad claimed that the bureau, infamous for political victimisation in the past, forced the ECP to file fraud cases against the couple.
‘In 2005, NAB pressurised us to file cases against Benazir and Zardari for filing wrong assets. But we refused to do so because we believed our impartiality would be affected,’ Dilshad stated.
The then NAB Chairman Shahid Aziz agreed with the Election Commission’s viewpoint, but after much convincing. Now that the fate of President Zardari is again in the limelight following the Supreme Court’s judgement against the NRO, some claim that with the sudden termination of the ordinance, President Zardari should be considered ineligible for the presidential elections, he already won in 2008.
But none of the presidential candidates ever raised objections against his candidature.
‘No candidate ever raised objection against the candidatures of Mr Zardari. Mushahid Hussain was the candidate of the PML-Q and Saeeduzzaman Siddiqui was the candidate of the PML-N. Both of them did not file any complain to the ECP to reject the nomination papers of Mr Zardari,’ said Dilshad.
‘It has been very clear in the law that once the candidatures are accepted of any candidate by the Election Commission, no appeal can be filed against,’ he said.
Asif Zardari, husband of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, has waited for more than 5 years for the start of his trial on charges of killing his brother-in-law, Murtaza Bhutto in 1997. In April 1999, Zardari was tried and convicted separately on corruption charges. In December 2001 Zardari received bail but was not released; the NAB ordered his continued detention on suspicion of corruption. Despite government claims that NAB cases would be pursued independent of an individual?s political affiliation, NAB has taken a selective approach to anti-corruption efforts (see Section 1.d.). The Musharraf Government in 1999 created by ordinance the NAB and special accountability courts to try corruption cases (see Section 1.d.). The NAB was created in part to deal with as much as $4 billion (PKR 208 billion) that was estimated to be owed to the country’s banks (all of which were state-owned at the time; several have since been privatized) by debtors, primarily from among the wealthy elite. The Musharraf Government stated that it would not target genuine business failures or small defaulters and does not appear to have done so. The NAB was given broad powers to prosecute corruption cases, and the accountability courts were expected to try such cases within 30 days. As originally promulgated, the ordinance prohibited courts from granting bail and gave the NAB chairman sole power to decide if and when to release detainees.
The ordinance also allowed those suspected by the State Bank of Pakistan of defaulting on government loans or of corrupt practices to be detained for 15 days without charge (renewable with judicial concurrence) and, prior to being charged, did not allow access to counsel. In accountability cases, there was a presumption of guilt, and conviction under the ordinance can result in 14 years’ imprisonment, fines, and confiscation of property. Those convicted also originally were disqualified from running for office or holding office for 10 years. In August 2000, the Government announced that persons with a court conviction would be barred from holding party office. This provision was used during the general election to prevent certain candidates from entering the contest. REFERENCE: Pakistan
Country Reports on Human Rights Practices Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor
2002 March 31, 2003 http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2002/18314.htm
Pakistan
National Level: The Musharraf Government in 1999 created by Ordinance the NAB (National Accountability Bureau) and special accountability courts to try exclusively corruption cases. These Courts are part of the national judicial system and operate under the Chief Justices of the High Courts of Pakistan. For up-to-date statistics on the number and type of cases files, convicted and acquitted, please refer to the Appendix. The NAB was created in part to deal with as much as $4 billion (PKR 208 billion) that was estimated to be owed to the country’s banks (all of which were state-owned at the time; several have since been privatized) by debtors, primarily from among the wealthy elite. The Musharraf Government stated that it would not target genuine business failures or small defaulters and does not appear to have done so. The NAB was given broad powers to prosecute corruption cases, and the accountability courts were expected to try such cases within 30 days. As originally promulgated, the ordinance prohibited courts from granting bail and gave the NAB chairman sole power to decide if and when to release detainees.
The ordinance also allowed those suspected by the State Bank of Pakistan of defaulting on government loans or of corrupt practices to be detained for 15 days without charge (renewable with judicial concurrence) and, prior to being charged, did not allow access to counsel. In accountability cases, there was a presumption of guilt, and conviction under the ordinance can result in 14 years’ imprisonment, fines, and confiscation of property. Originally, those convicted were set to disqualify from running for office or holding office for 10 years. In August 2000, the Government announced that persons with a court conviction would be barred from holding party office. This provision was applied during the general election to prevent certain candidates from entering the contest. REFERENCE:
I. Special Corruption Courts in Asia http://www.u4.no/helpdesk/helpdesk/queries/query19.cfm
The new government’s principal vehicle for detaining former officials and party leaders, however, was the National Accountability Ordinance, a law ostensibly created to bring corrupt officials to account. The ordinance confers sweeping powers of arrest, investigation, and prosecution in a single institution, the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), and permits detainees to be held for up to ninety days without being brought before a court. The law was later amended to facilitate conviction by shifting the burden of proof during trial from the prosecution to the defense.
There were persistent reports of ill treatment in NAB custody, particularly in the case of high profile detainees who were held early in the year in Attock Fort. Persons convicted under the ordinance were prohibited from holding public office for a period of twenty-one years. An amendment to the Political Parties Act in August also barred anyone with a court conviction from holding party office. The combined effect of these acts, as they were applied, was to eliminate the existing leadership of the major political parties. While administration officials said that parties would be allowed to participate in future elections to the Senate and national and provincial assemblies, local government elections, scheduled to be held in December, were to be conducted on a non-party basis.
The Musharraf government also suppressed political activity by conducting raids on party offices, preventing political rallies from being held, and lodging criminal cases against rally organizers under laws governing sedition and the Maintenance of Public Order (MPO) Ordinance. The sedition law, Section 124-A of the Pakistan Penal Code, criminalizes speech that “brings or attempts to bring into hatred or contempt, or excites or attempts to excite disaffection towards, the Central or Provincial Government established by law.” Section 16 of the Maintenance of Public Order Ordinance prohibits speech that “causes or is likely to cause fear or alarm to the public” or any section thereof, or which “furthers or is likely to further any activity prejudicial to public safety or the maintenance of public order.”
Rana Sanaullah Khan, a member of the suspended Punjab provincial assembly from Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League (PML), was arrested in Faisalabad on November 28, 1999. The arrest came after he criticized the army at a meeting of former legislators and urged his colleagues to launch a protest movement against the military government. He was tortured while in custody, and criminal charges were registered against him under the sedition law and MPO .
On March 15, the government formally curtailed freedom of association and assembly with an order banning public rallies, demonstrations, and strikes. The order’s enforcement against a procession from Lahore to Peshawar that Nawaz Sharif’s wife, Kulsoom Nawaz, had planned to lead, resulted in the arrests of at least 165 PML leaders and activists. On September 21 the ban was also invoked against 250 members of the hardline Sunni Muslim group, Sipah-e-Sahaba, who had planned a march to celebrate a religious anniversary. REFERENCE: Human Rights Developments http://www.hrw.org/legacy/wr2k1/asia/pakistan.html