FORMER prime minister Imran Khan and his wife, Bushra Bibi, continue to be held incommunicado inside Adiala Jail. Their jailers insist on their right to deny the couple access to family and lawyers — a position whose legal and moral basis grows harder to defend with each passing week as their health reportedly declines. Their family and supporters continue to seek relief from the courts. That quest has so far proved futile. Much of the public, meanwhile, has moved on, with no shortage of other crises competing for attention. This newspaper has consistently opposed the maltreatment of political leaders regardless of affiliation, for the simple reason that political disputes cannot and must not be settled through lawfare. That principle does not bend with the news cycle. The denial of family visits and legal counsel to a reportedly ailing political prisoner is unconscionable, and it remains so whether or not the country is paying attention.

The state’s apparent rationale — that meetings might be used for political purposes — does not justify the wholesale deprivation of fundamental rights of the former first couple. Access to family and lawyers is not a privilege the state extends at its discretion; it is the baseline owed to any detainee. If specific conduct in specific meetings is a concern, the state has recourse to narrower remedies than ordering their complete isolation. The federal government must restore visits by family — which the latter should refrain from politicising under the circumstances — guarantee unimpeded access to legal counsel, and permit independent medical assessment of both detainees. The judiciary must find the will to enforce rights that are not anyone’s to ration. The country has seen this pattern before, with leaders of every political stripe. Each time, the damage has outlasted the dispute that produced it. There is still time to choose a different course in this case, but only if those with the power to do so are willing to be held to a standard higher than expedience.

Published in Dawn, May 15th, 2026