From Beirut to the Swiss cases —Munir Attaullah

The attorney general is a presidential appointee and all official acts of the Government of Pakistan abroad are technically carried out in the name of the president. So, how will the Swiss legal authorities react to the paradoxical situation of a president filing suit against himself?

At my age, there is an easily
reached limit to pursuing what euphemistically might be termed ‘frivolous activities’. The Nike slogan, and those TV ads for certain US soft drinks notwithstanding, it is now — far more often than not — enervating hard work trying to recapture the magical fizz of youth by ‘doing it’ (or whatever).

Should I then seek salvation — as many will not — and spend however many days I have left, in penance and prayer? I dismiss such thoughts with the derisive shrug they deserve. Full steam ahead and damn the torpedoes, I say. Indulge in whatever you realistically can (and there is always plenty) while the going is good, is my motto.

But we humans have a powerful propensity to rationalise. As objective conditions change, so do our perspectives. As an example, consider the following. I am in Beirut at present. Years ago I would have had no time to produce a column, so busy would I have been to partake of everything on offer here. With changed circumstances, it is now easy to convince oneself that there is a duty to readers that must not be shirked (even though I know they rightly could not care less about such trifles). With the mind still reasonably active, and with plenty of time now to ruminate, priorities too have changed.

So follow my idle chain of thought as I relax on the balcony of my suite at the Phoenicia Hotel on a balmy spring afternoon, drinking coffee and wondering what to communicate to readers through the column. Naturally, the thoughts begin with reflections about Beirut. But then, via wholly unexpected links, they end up in a meandering way to consider those Swiss cases our higher judiciary and a section of the media seem so obsessed with.

I first came to Beirut way back in the early 1970s, in my penniless youth. In those days — just before Lebanon too became a victim of the political hurricanes that frequent the Middle East — it was a go-go city (it still is) in every sense of the word. And the common language, a blessed climate, the nightclubs and the Casino de Liban, and a haughty cultural and fashion aristocracy were the kind of attractions rich Arabs found irresistible. Lebanese banks threatened their Swiss counterparts as a safe and readily accessible parking place, no questions asked, for fortunes however acquired.

Those were the days before the US forced these silly money-laundering laws upon the rest of the world. You could arrive at any airport with a million dollars in cash in your briefcase and no one would as much as blink. Indeed, you would likely be obsequiously welcomed with that hushed envy reserved for the big spenders. Now you had better be prepared to answer all sorts of absurd questions if you have as little as $ 10,000 upon your person.

Money laundering laws were originally instituted to curb the flow of drugs from South America to the US (and tightened, in recent times, to make difficult the flow of funds to ‘terrorist’ organisations). Who amongst my generation that happened to visit Miami three decades ago, does not remember how there was a bank round every block whose sole function was to accept and re-route drug money for a handsome fee? Then, suddenly, a normal ‘free enterprise’ activity was made illegal as the US decided to launch a ‘war on drugs’.

As an aside, such thoughts give rise to some interesting incidental reflections. A cynic may well ask why the most powerful country in the world only undertakes losing ‘wars’ (prohibition being another example). Also, did not the CIA (as many believe) help expand and facilitate the drug trade from Afghanistan in order to launder funds for that jihad? And why is the world so hung up on the recreational use of comparatively less harmful soft drugs like hashish and marijuana while taking a relatively benign attitude towards medically more harmful tobacco and alcohol?

All this talk of money laundering inevitably brings me to those damned Swiss cases we never seem to cease reading and hearing about. I note that the Supreme Court (SC) has severely castigated the chairman NAB for seemingly dragging his feet in re-opening the cases, and he in turn has tendered his resignation to the government. The life of a top bureaucrat these days has all the potential of becoming a nightmare. What will he do when he finds himself crushed between the dictates of the SC and the orders of his political masters?

In any case, as the NAB chairman pointed out, it is not clear if he is to initiate proceedings directly in Switzerland or through the Attorney General (AG)? Or is the right procedure to be that the AG should approach the Swiss authorities in the name of the Government of Pakistan (GoP)?

The AG is a presidential appointee and all official acts of the GoP abroad are technically carried out in the name of the president. So, how will the Swiss legal authorities react to the paradoxical situation of a president filing suit against himself? In any case, does not the president enjoy immunity under Swiss law? And will the AG soon find himself in the same position as the chairman NAB?

Finally, I remember that the GoP formally withdrew the cases a year ago through the then AG, Malik Qayyum. Sure, the SC has recently held that he had no legal authority at the time to do what he did. Such a retrospective decision may well have legal consequences here (and certainly leaves Malik Qayyum in a difficult bind) but why should the Swiss authorities consider the ruling to be anything other than inconsequential now?

For, when the highest legal officer of a state, in the name of its president, publicly commits his country in a formal manner (and without challenge, to boot), the principle of state sovereignty requires the other state to unquestioningly assume that that declaration is fully legally made, without going into the nitty-gritty of whether the officer has the authority to do so. So, as far as the Swiss are concerned, were not the cases formally, legally, and procedurally properly, abandoned by the GoP a year ago? And is a closed case not a closed case?

The writer is a businessman. A selection of his columns is now available in book form. Visit munirattaullah.com