In a first, IMF team scrutinises judicial system

IMF officials meet Chief Justice Yahya Afridi

Chief Justice of Pakistan presenting a crest to a member of the IMF delegation

IN an astonishing and deeply troubling turn of events, members of a technical team of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), who are visiting the country to scrutinise matters relating to the $7 billion bailout deal, met Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Justice Yahya Afridi on Tuesday and sought details regarding “programme implementation and property rights”.

According to a story posted to the website of daily ‘Dawn’, “The IMF team is visiting the country for a weeklong scrutiny of the judicial and regulatory system as part of the ongoing $7bn Extended Fund Facility (EFF) to address governance and corruption vulnerabilities.”

Some analysts criticised the CJP’s meeting with the six-member IMF team because, according to them, it smacked of a total surrender of the country’s sovereignty before officials of the world agency. They said the judiciary is supposed to be independent and that no government had allowed any foreign agency to subject the judiciary to a scrutiny before.

One analyst said: “Successive Pakistani governments took loans from the IMF. In fact, we have taken loans more than 20 times, but no scrutiny of the judiciary has been carried out before by the IMF people.”

Taking the judiciary as well as the executive to task over what he said was a “sorry display of weakness and cowardice”, he added: “Until now they (IMF officials) were objecting to matters like provision of subsidy to the poor people. But now they are even questioning judges.”

A reporter, meanwhile, said a hint of dissension was apparently given by Chief Justice Afridi himself, because after the controversial meeting he told some reporters that it was not the judges’ job to “disclose all the details”, underscoring that they had taken “an oath of independence of the judiciary under the Constitution”.

However, any discordant note, if any, fizzled out as soon as it had emerged. Consequently, Dawn’s news report described in detail how cordial the meeting was and also published a “happy image” showing Chief Justice Afridi handing over a memento to the head of the visiting IMF team.

“Not even an iota of resistance was offered in the entire episode. Nobody is interested in doing the right thing although everyone wants the best for themselves.”