A Supreme Court judge on this Tuesday has remarked that disqualifying the Prime Minister on the basis of off-the-cuff statements would set a dangerous precedence in the country’s judicial history.
“We are human beings, make off-the-cuff statements without a sense of guilt and then we usually review them.”
Quite clearly this is Justice Ejaz Afzal Khan’s personal view and not a judgment. This view has considerable weight too. We all do make statements occasionally which are casual and not intended to be recorded as absolute facts. But the two statements that the Prime Minister has made last year regarding the Panama Leaks case were certainly not off-the-cuff. The first statement was made in a national telecast. It was a pre-written and well-prepared speech that the Prime Minister read out, and was clearly intended to be regarded as truth and nothing but the truth behind the Panama scandal. If it was not intended to be so, the Prime Minister was clearly making a fool of the whole nation. And a prime minister who doesn’t mind making a fool of the nation that he leads, quite certainly doesn’t deserve to lead the nation.
The second statement that the Prime Minister made on the same issue was in the National Assembly, and this too was pre-written and well-prepared. As this speech was delivered in the House whose sanctity is regarded as supreme in democracy, even to think that the Prime Minister was not speaking Truth and nothing but the Truth is a mental aberration. So we should all firmly and honestly believe that the Prime Minister had not lied in that speech. In the other words, he had not constructed the TRUTH of his convenience to justify the ways and means that had led to the ownership of the London flats by his family.
If God forbid it turns out (as feared by Justice Ejaz Afzal Khan) that the Prime Minister had not spoken truth or had stated ‘facts’ that contradicted reality, the Prime Minister stands automatically disqualified to hold an office that is linked with a sacred oath made on Al Quran.
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