Panama leaks probe: Joint opposition agrees on TORs of judicial commission

ISLAMABAD: Opposition party leaders on Tuesday agreed on a joint strategy a judicial investigation of disclosures from the Panama Papers linking Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's children and several other Pakistanis to offshore companies.

However, opposition parties were still divided on whether they should ask the prime minister to step down until the judicial inquiry is concluded.

The terms of reference (TORs) agreed upon by the opposition, a copy of which was available with Geo News, do not mention any point about the resignation of the prime minister.

According to the TORs, the opposition has agreed to press the government for a special law – the “PANAMA PAPERS (INQUIRY AND TRIAL) ACT, 2016” – to be passed to facilitate the investigation into the assets, foreign and domestic, of the prime minister and all other Pakistanis named in the Panama Papers.

The joint opposition would call for the constitution of a special judicial commission headed by the Chief Justice of Pakistan and comprising of two other Supreme Court judges to be nominated by the Chief Justice.

"The Commission may appoint a committee of experts…in international forensic audit to carry out an exhaustive investigation and audit into the offshore companies and their accounts owned by the Respondent and his family including all transactions, sales and purchases of all assets, moveable and immoveable, including stocks, shares, debentures and equitable or benami interests, opening and operation of all bank accounts, including offshore bank accounts and incorporation of all companies including offshore companies whether directly or behind corporate veil(s) wherever in the world they may be,” read a copy of the terms of reference, a copy of which is available with Geo News.

The commission will also be tasked to verify the money trail and how funds were provided for such offshore companies.

The act passed will provide for "an irrebuttable presumption of guilt" if those being investigated refuse or fail to facilitate of authorize the probe.

Those being investigated shall bear the burden of proving, if ownership of such assets or offshore companies is established, that it was lawfully acquired through legitimate sources and funds.

“Before the Commission enters upon any Inquiry, the Respondents (starting with the Prime Minister his Family as volunteered by himself) shall place all and complete information of all their worldwide moveable and immoveable assets and interests in properties, benami, beneficial, offshore or otherwise held at any time since 1985 along with full details of the Income,” read the terms of reference agreed upon by the joint opposition.

The opposition parties – including PPP, PTI, JI, ANP, MQM and BNP-M – agreed on the points after meeting for a second time today at the residence of Senator Aitzaz Ahsen.

The opposition had called for the meeting to discuss a plan of action to deal with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s alleged links to offshore companies named in the Panama Papers — an unprecedented leak of 11.5 million files from an offshore law firm Mossack Fonseca.

Leaked confidential documents spanning over nearly 40 years that spell out the extensive use of tax havens by politicians, world leaders, and celebrities to launder money and evade taxes through one of the most secretive companies the Panamaian law firm Mossack Fonseca, had taken the world by storm.

Many Pakistanis have also been named in their revelations.

The documents identify many Pakistani business tycoons and politicians including late two-time Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto as well certain members of the ruling Sharif family (excluding PM Nawaz Sharif and his brother Chief Minister of Punjab Shahbaz Sharif) to have use tax havens to hide their wealth.