The Sharifs under Queen’s laws

Poor you, Shahzad. One of the traditions of the English Bar (for barristers) is calling a fellow barrister by their first name, no matter how junior or senior one may be. Another is not to shake hands in your own chambers, suggesting that a brother in the same house doesn’t shake hands with the other sibling.

So, the former advisor to the PM bites the dust after three years of a tough and thankless job. The well intending barrister couldn’t do the impossible and anyone stepping into his shoes will bang his head against a wall.

Catching and punishing the corrupt in Pakistan is like climbing K2 without the aid of oxygen. Previous political parties in successive governments managed to turn the practice of graft into a science.

Once, in the late 90s, I listened to the late General Hameed Gul in a private get-together at PTV director Zaheer Bhatti’s house in Islamabad, following the elections where Islami Jamhoori Ittehad (IJI) had won the ballot. The outspoken general, who had cobbled together the IJI with the sole mission to get rid of Benazir Bhutto, had been invited along with his son Omer to breakfast by Nawaz Sharif, the PM in waiting.

The General, after congratulating the hosts, cautioned them to deal with the banks in a soft manner…. “haath hola rakhna!” A reply to this came from Mian Sharif saying, “General, we came to this country empty handed and now when it is our turn, you are asking us to deal with the banks softly?”

Hearing this first-hand from the General, I was left aghast. Upon my quizzing look, he responded, “ask my son Omer, he was there”.

Thereafter my focus remained on the design and pattern of deep-rooted and institutionalised corruption by both the PPP and PML-N. It’s simply staggering. I hope I will never, till my last breath, say anything substantive about the SGS and Cotecna cases in Switzerland for which I was Benazir’s lawyer. My duty to maintain confidentiality of my clients prevents me from loose talk.

But nothing prevents me from denuding the plunderers of our nation’s mean resources over donkey’s years. It’s a crime not to talk about it.

Political parties, not merely limited to just PPP and PML-N, always had just one true item on their manifestos – plunder and run. Has anyone questioned the professional politicians sitting in assemblies and the senate as to how they make their living over and above the amount received from their legislative work? The majority of them live off the spoils of corruption.

Millions are spent on elections through bribing voters, changing cops at their police stations after winning elections, making sure all selected officials are posted in their constituencies and beyond, and quickly enabling the look of a corruption-free environment. Just one look at their lifestyle and modus operandi confirms that it reeks of dirty money.

At a higher level it’s the appointment of a patwari, a session judge, a high court judge, or the right civil servants. The whole circus is about having total control, and it starts to look a bit like the mafia. Illiterate and false degree holders clad in shalwar kameez and sporting bulging bellies make up the collective portrait of our politicians.

Bank presidents were traditionally appointed only to achieve loan sanctions for fake projects. My own firsthand experience of being on the board of a leading bank has given me insight into such sordid affairs.

Shahzad was tasked with asset recovery of the plundered money and depositing it in the exchequer, further ensuring that the corrupt end up spending long years behind bars. How was he to reverse the appointments of the collaborative judiciary, bureaucracy, and police to fulfil the desire, agenda and manifesto of accountability during the term of PTI’s government? Only a magician can perform such a feat.

Where are the legal and judicial reforms in the past three years? What are the plans to filter out the personal-loyal bureaucracy? Where’s the legislation to streamline judicial appointments? Why is our foreign relations interaction not asset recovery and mutual assistance-specific with, at least, the UK? Why doesn’t the cabinet promptly update their no-fly list to prevent the flight of suspected thieves out of the reach of law enforcement?

In the absence of fundamental and enabling policies, mere rhetoric has never been helpful in ending the menace of corruption. Corrupt people and money-launderers unashamedly siphon their dirty money, buy properties through offshore companies concealing beneficial ownership, freely fly in and out of Pakistan and dodge the investigating regime, buy off any impediment on the way, remaining apparently clean and victimlike.

Laws in the West encourage “investors” of such kind. Hence the circus of offshore companies and their rules.

In the UK at least, this corrupt-friendly regime is blissfully coming to an end through a new bill named Overseas Entities Bill, presently going through its second reading in the House of Commons. This law will strip off the veil of secrecy and require the owners of offshore companies to declare their names. The effect of that obligation will expose the real owners of Avenfield House apartments owned by the Sharif family and a lot more.

In the case of Nawaz Sharif, who chose not to appeal to the Supreme Court against the high court’s dismissal of his appeal in the Avenfield flats case, the matter has reached finality. Islamabad High Court, leaving an opening of applying again upon his arrest or return, doesn’t stop the time bar operation of the law.

In practice terms once Overseas Entities Bill becomes the law of the UK, Pakistan through Brigadier Mussadaq Abassi (Retd.) can approach the UK for confiscation of Avenfield flats belonging to the Sharif family. The finality of the case is based on plundered money; the proceeds of confiscated properties could be passed on to Pakistan like the billions of dollars found in Malik Riaz’s UK bank accounts which were legally stamped as dirty money by the London High Court.

That’s when Imran Khan would perform a hat-trick in his first test match against the mafia.

The author is a former Senator and a practicing lawyer of England and Pakistan.