n Pakistan, the accountability process, accountability courts, accountability laws and the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) have all been extremely controversial. There is a growing impression that these laws and institutions are used for victimisation and can neither curb corruption nor dispense justice. Various political and social sages believe that the NAB should either be abolished or radically reorganised.

Last week, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) heard testimony from a woman who accused several NAB officials of stripping her, making a video of her torture and filing false cases against her, allegedly on the instructions of then then NAB chairman, Justice Javed Iqbal (retired). PAC chairman Noor Alam Khan has since urged Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif to remove Iqbal as head of the Commission on Missing Persons.

Muhammad Arshad, a friend of the former federal minister and PPP stalwart Jehangir Badr died in NAB custody in 2004. An autopsy found that he had been tortured. However, no action was taken against the culprits. Many political leaders including former president Asif Zardari, former prime ministers Nawaz Sharif, Yusuf Raza Gillani, Raja Pervez Ashraf and Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif and Maryam Nawaz were taken into custody by the NAB. However, none of the cases against them has reached a final conclusion. Most of them were either acquitted or granted bail.

Former PM’s Advisor for Accountability Shehzad Akbar’s role in the political victimisation of the opponents was also widely condemned by the then opposition parties.

The excessive powers of the NAB have been curtailed through the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) (Amendment) Act, 2022. Section 14, which empowered the NAB to penalise people on mere suspicion, has been abolished. The NAB officers have been banned from making inquiries or investigations public. They can face up to a year in jail and a Rs 1 million fine for violating the ban.

The now law provides that an accountability court judge is to be appointed for three years and that cases are to be disposed of in a year.

For the removal of an accountability court judge, consultations with the chief justice of the high court concerned will be necessary. Above all, the NAB must have evidence to arrest a suspect. Filing a false reference is punishable with five years in jail.

However, these amendments alone cannot lend credibility to the anti-graft institution and the so-called accountability process. The accountability slogan has been misused by almost every ruler in Pakistan in pursuit of political vendettas. Pakistan spends heavily on the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) and the Anti-Corruption Departments, which are meant to counter corruption. It is therefore argued that the NAB should be abolished or radically reorganised following comprehensive political consultation.

Since 1949, the governments in Pakistan have been using various accountability mechanisms. The first prime minister, Liaquat Ali Khan, promulgated the Public Representative Offices Disqualification Act (PRODA) with effect from August 14, 1947. Under the PRODA, a public representative could be disqualified for 10 years. The then Punjab chief minister Nawab Iftikhar Mamdot and his counsel, Hosain Shaheed Sohrawardi were prominent among its victims. Sohrawardi later became prime minister. The PRODA is remembered mostly as a black law to target the opposition.

The excessive powers of the NAB have been curtailed through the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) (Amendment) Act, 2022. Section 14, which allowed the NAB to penalise people on mere suspicion, has been abolished. The NAB officers have been barred from making investigations public.

Gen Ayub Khan was clear that the PRODA was a ‘black law’. It was, therefore, replaced by a new Act: the Public Offices Disqualification Order (PODO). Shortly afterward, the PODO morphed into the Elective Bodies Disqualification Order (EBDO). Over 70 political opponents of Gen Ayub Khan, including Sohrawardi and Qayyum Khan, faced corruption charges and were barred from contesting elections till 1966. However, they were never convicted. Ayub Khan’s purge also took a toll on 3,000 civil servants who were dismissed following trials for misconduct in special tribunals working under retired judges.

Gen Yayha Khan showed a similar zeal and dismissed over 300 elite civil servants. Following suit in 1976, then prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto promulgated the Holders of Representative Offices Act (HPOA) and the Parliament and Provincial Assemblies (Disqualification for Membership) Act. Unlike the accountability laws passed before him, not a single case was registered under these Acts.

A spate of anti-corruption laws was put in effect under the military government of Gen Ziaul Haq. In 1990, Benazir Bhutto was deposed as prime minister by then president, Ghulam Ishaq Khan, on corruption charges. Khan also filed 20 corruption cases against Bhutto and her spouse, Asif Ali Zardari. Interestingly, when the president later ousted Nawaz Sharif from power in 1992, Asif Zardari was given oath as a federal minister in Mir Balkh Sher Mazari’s caretaker cabinet. Following a similar pattern, the second time Benazir Bhutto came to power in 1993, several cases were registered against Nawaz Sharif and his family members. On fresh charges of corruption in the year 1996, Bhutto’s government was dismissed by then president Farooq Leghari. Leghari also pledged to conduct an accountability process starting from 1985. He introduced the Ehtesab (Accountability) Ordinance and set up an Ehtesab Commission with a retired chief justice of the Lahore High Court, Ghulam Mujaddid Mirza as the Chief Ehtesab Commissioner.

The accountability process became more controversial in 1997 when Nawaz Sharif came into power for the second time and enacted the Ehtesab Act, 1997. Under this law, powers of the Ehtesab Commissioner were curtailed and an Ehtesab Cell was established. It took orders from Sharif’s close aide Saifur Rehman. In 1998, the Ehtesab Cell was renamed as the Ehtesab Bureau. It specifically targetted Benazir Bhutto, her spouse and close advisors. In 2003, an audio tape was released by the PPP in which Saifur Rehman was heard telling Malik Qayyum, a judge of the Lahore High Court, to award maximum punishment to Bhutto and Zardari in a money laundering case. They were convicted and sentenced to five years in prison.

The current structure of the National Accountability Bureau was set up by Gen Pervez Musharraf who issued the National Accountability Bureau Ordinance to replace the Ehtesab Act of 1997. Musharraf gave immense powers to the NAB including 90 days of custody without producing the detained person in any court of law. One could only apply for bail after 90 days. The ordinance was ruthlessly misused against politicians and some leading industrialists, ahead of the 2002 general elections. The coalition government of 2008 ordered the NAB to halt inquiries against 60 politicians.

After Nawaz Sharif was elected as prime minister for the third time in 2013, the Panama Leaks surfaced and led to his disqualification. Later, an accountability court sentenced him to seven years in jail and a fine of Rs 1.5 billion in the Al Azizia Steel Mill Case. His sentence became extremely controversial after a video of the presiding judge was released by Maryam Nawaz Sharif. It showed the judge declaring that he had been under immense pressure to convict and sentence Sharif. Judge Malik was later dismissed by the Lahore High Court for misconduct.

Former prime minister Imran Khan, after taking oath in July 2018, pledged ‘merciless’ across-the-board accountability through the NAB but kept targetting PPP and PML-N leaders.

Fair and across-the-board accountability is not possible without a free democracy. If the government reconstitutes the NAB after abolishing its current structure with a national consensus, the accountability process might earn people’s confidence over the coming years.

Mubasher Bukhari is a senior journalist, teacher of journalism, writer and analyst. He tweets at @BukhariMubasher