Perhaps nowhere in the developing world has accountability been so much at the heart of national debate than in Pakistan. Ironically, very few countries may have made more of a mess of the job.

If needed, the proof is the most recent ranking of Pakistan on the Corruption Perceptions Index by Transparency International. According to the 2020 ranking, Pakistan has slipped four points down the transparency ladder compared to 2019.

Historically, accountability in Pakistan has been mostly ill-conceived, rarely well-executed, and blatantly selective in most cases. In almost all accountability drives, politicians on the wrong side of the divide were regarded as fair game. Civil bureaucracy was the second major target of accountability. The security establishment and judiciary were conspicuous by their absence among the targets.

Pakistan faced a massive challenge of corruption and abuse of authority right from day one. Jinnah rightly pointed out corruption as one of the biggest curses that must be put down with an iron hand. Ironically, the way evacuee property, which was abandoned by the departing Hindus and Sikhs during mass migration after Partition, was dispensed with shaped the moral fabric and mostly institutionalised corruption. There are authentic reports of massive corruption by politicians, bureaucrats, local notables and refugee groups who scrambled for evacuee property.

The accountability drive in Pakistan formally started when the then prime minister, Liaquat Ali Khan, promulgated the Public Representative Offices Disqualification Act (PRODA) in 1949 to check graft and misuse of authority. Corrupt politicians could be disqualified under PRODA for as long as ten years. The political opposition alleged that PRODA was aimed at whistleblowers in the opposite camps who highlighted the ruling Muslim League’s corruption.

In 1954, Liaquat Ali Khan’s PRODA was repealed because of its partiality and incompatibility with democratic norms. In March 1959, Gen Ayub Khan replaced the PRODA with a new law called the Public Offices Disqualification Order (PODO) and had later substituted it with the Elective Bodies Disqualification Order (EBDO). Under this law, around 75 senior politicians were charged. This included Qayyum Khan and Hosein Shaheed Suhrawardy.

They were disqualified from contesting elections till the end of 1966. However, they were never tried and convicted. This lends credence to the presumption that the objective of the PODO and the EBDO was not as much to stem corruption as it was to tame the politicians in the opposition.

In 1976, then prime minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto enacted the Holders of Representative Offices Act and the Parliament and Provincial Assemblies (Disqualification for Membership) Act. Still, no case were registered under these laws. However, around 1,100 government officers were sacked without trial. Due process of law that was ignored in the summary dismissal of civil servants. This became the hallmark of subsequent accountability drives as well.

Gen Ziaul Haq repealed the earlier anti-corruption laws and issued two presidential orders, commonly known as PPO No 16 and 17 in 1977. Critics still argue that the Zia regime institutionalised corruption. It introduced ideas, such as development funds for MNAs and MPAs and wrote off bank loans of the military ruler’s supporters and loyalists. Ironically, only this week Prime Minister Imran Khan has announced a grant of Rs 500 million for each member of National Assembly and provincial assemblies for development schemes in their constituencies. It is not yet clear if party affiliation will be a factor in the release of development funds to parliamentarians. If so, further exegete will be needed on how such allocation of public money based on party affiliation can be made.

In 1990, Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was ousted from power on corruption charges by President Ghulam Ishaq Khan. President Khan was instrumental in filing about 20 corruption cases against Bhutto and her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, during 1990-92.

The emergence of Broadsheet scandal also sheds light on the direction of accountability in Pakistan. The NAB signed a highly controversial agreement with the assets recovery firm.

After the 1993 elections, Benazir Bhutto became PM for the second time. She vehemently accused the Sharifs of receiving kickbacks in the Lahore-Islamabad Motorway and Yellow Cab Scheme and obtaining huge loans from nationalised banks. A total of 150 cases of corruption and irregularities were instituted against Nawaz and his family members.

In a strange twist of turns, President Farooq Leghari sent Benazir Bhutto packing in November 1996 over similar charges of corruption. President Leghari also promulgated the Ehtesab (Accountability) Ordinance.

Nawaz Sharif came to power for the second time in 1997 and amended the Ehtesab (Accountability) Ordinance. The amended law shifted the investigation from the Chief Ehtesab Commissioner to an Ehtesab Cell located at the PM‘s Secretariat and headed by Sharif‘s close confidant, Senator Saifur Rehman. Soon, the Cell earned notoriety for targeting political opponents and intimidating dissenting elements in the press. It focused largely on former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, her family and close associates. She was incriminated on charges of misuse of power and possession of assets beyond known means of income. Her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, was detained on five charges of corruption and one of smuggling narcotics case.

The US State Department, in its annual Human Rights Report for the year 1997 highlighted the allegation of Asif Zardari that he had been tortured and his tongue lacerated in the custody of the Crime Investigation Agency. This was seen as an attempt to force a confessional statement incriminating him and his wife. The police called it a suicide attempt. Recently, Nadeem Afzal Chan, a spokesperson for PM Imran Khan has said that Rana Maqbool, then IGP, had cut Zardari’s tongue and was rewarded for it with several favours including a Senate ticket. Asif Zardari, arrested by the caretaker government after the PPP government’s dismissal in November 1996, spent eight years in prison.

In October 1999, Gen Pervez Musharraf assumed power and replaced the Ehtesab Act of 1997 with the National Accountability Bureau Ordinance. The NAB was given sweeping powers. It could arrest anyone for 90 days without producing the arrested person in any court of law. The accused could not apply for bail.

Gen Musharraf also promulgated the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) in October 2007. It granted amnesty to politicians, political workers and bureaucrats who were accused of corruption, money laundering, murder and terrorism, etc between January 1, 1986, and October 12, 1999, the time between two Martial Law stints in Pakistan. The NRO was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of Pakistan in December 2009.

In 2007, the cases against PPP leaders were also closed. However, the Supreme Court declared the NRO void in 2009. This resulted in reopening of these cases. However, by then, Asif Zardari had been elected president and thereby enjoyed constitutional immunity. After his term ended in 2013, he faced references in several cases.

In May 2013, Nawaz Sharif bagged the popular vote to rule the country for the third time. However, the PTI alleged serious rigging of elections. Later, the allegations of corruption against PML-N leaders rose to a deafening crescendo.

The names of 436 Pakistanis were identified in Panama Papers and 135 in Paradise Papers revelations. Only Nawaz Sharif was disqualified from premiership in this context even though his name did not directly appear in Panama Papers. No effective investigations were carried out against others named in Panama Papers.

The recent emergence of Broadsheet scandal has shed new light on the direction of accountability in Pakistan. The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) signed a highly controversial agreement with the assets recovery firm. Justice Azmat Saeed, a former Supreme Court of Pakistan judge, who has been nominated by the federal government to head the inquiry committee to probe the Broadsheet affair, was then a deputy prosecutor general of the Bureau.

Justice Saeed was appointed a special NAB prosecutor in 2001 to pursue cases before the accountability courts at Attock Fort and Rawalpindi. Later, as a judge of the Supreme Court, he was a member of the bench that handed down the judgment in the Panama Papers case against Nawaz Sharif that disqualified him. Justice Saeed is currently an honorary member of the board of governors of Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Trust.

The writer is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Economics at COMSATS University Islamabad, Lahore Campus