LAHORE: Referring to the Supreme Court’s directive for the accountability court hearing references against the Sharif family to announce a verdict in a month, former prime minister Nawaz Sharif said on Monday, “Haven’t they heard that justice rushed is justice crushed.”
Addressing a news conference in Lahore after his lawyer Khwaja Haris recused himself from the case, the PML-N quaid said, “I have been denied the right to defend myself. Are legal requirements important or announcing the verdict before July 25?” he questioned.
Sharif said it was impossible for any lawyer to review thousands of pages of case files at this stage of the trial. “It is impossible for a lawyer to take on a case at this stage and begin arguments the next day. Such an environment is being created that I am deprived of a legal counsel,” he said, adding that no other defendant in such a case had appeared before the court 100 times. Sharif said that if a verdict before July 25 was a need or a compulsion, then the court should proceed with it, but it must be kept in mind that such a verdict would be a mockery of law, human rights and judicial norms.
The statements came after the accountability court gave the former premier only a day’s time to find a new counsel as Khwaja Haris withdrew his power of attorney from the case during the Al-Azizia reference hearing.
Haris took the decision in protest against the apex court’s ‘dictation’ for the trial court to wrap up proceedings in a month.
The lawyer and his team walked out of the case, stating that they could not perform under such pressure. In a written note to the apex court, Haris said the Supreme Court had instructed the accountability court to wrap up the proceedings in a month and to conduct hearings on Saturdays as well. He said the top court had not accepted his stance on the three references. “As a professional lawyer, I think the arguments for all of the three references [against Nawaz and his family] could be presented together,” he observed. At the hearing on June 4, Haris had requested the accountability court judge Muhammad Bashir to hear arguments for all the three corruption references jointly. “Sixty per cent of the arguments are the same in the three references,” he said.
On Sunday, CJP Mian Saqib Nisar had directed the accountability court to announce its verdict on the corruption references against the former prime minister and his children within a month. Haris had petitioned the court to set aside six weeks for the completion of the trial. He also submitted multiple pleas seeking simultaneous recording of statements from the head of the Joint Investigation Team, Wajid Zia. However, all pleas to club the references were rejected and dismissed.
The hearing of has been adjourned till Tuesday (today). The Sharif family face three corruption references filed by the NAB in view of the Joint Investigation Team’s findings in an investigation ordered by the Supreme Court in its verdict on the Panama Papers case.
Published in Daily Times, June 12th 2018.
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