THE unexplained urgency with which the trial has been completed has overshadowed the crime that was alleged. For justice to be fair, it must be transparent and adhere to due process. Failure to ensure transparency and due process in the dispensation of justice are themselves an injustice, not least because it may allow an individual credibly accused of a crime to escape lawful punishment. The merits of the case against Hanif Abbasi, a PML-N candidate for the National Assembly from Rawalpindi, are difficult to assess because of the unexplained haste with which the trial has been completed. At a minimum, it does appear that Mr Abbasi may have faced credible accusations that required a strong defence against. But an alleged crime punished in extraordinary circumstances by a court of law has necessarily turned attention to what amounts to a serious undermining of the judicial process itself.

To begin with, set aside that Mr Abbasi is a politician who was to contest a general election in a few days’ time. A verdict delivered in the middle of the night resulting in a lifetime sentence for any individual, private citizen or public-office seeker, is a simply shocking abuse of the judicial system. It is incomprehensible that any judicial process, let alone one where the life of an individual hangs in the balance, sanctioned by the law and the Constitution can allow for such gross violation of due process and judicial transparency. But it would be wrong to heap all blame on the judge of the Control of Narcotic Substances Court of Rawalpindi. The judge of the anti-narcotics court had been given an extraordinary deadline by the Lahore High Court to complete the trial, which had meandered typically through the judicial system for many years, before the general election on July 25.

Perhaps Mr Abbasi’s middle-of-the-night conviction and sentencing is explicable if his political affiliation with the PML-N and the already deeply controversial general election are considered. This is where the true extent of the damage to the judicial system wrought by a strangely executed judgement becomes apparent. The judicialisation of politics now appears to be morphing into the criminalisation of a certain kind of politics and some political parties. All stakeholders in the judicial system should consider the potentially disastrous consequences of the path being taken in the name of accountability. Perhaps recognising the troubling implications of holding an election in a constituency where one of the leading candidates has been judicially eliminated virtually on the eve of polling day, the ECP has postponed voting in NA-60. Better sense needs to prevail on all sides.

Published in Dawn, July 23rd, 2018