Right Angle – Written by Nadeem Ahmed Advocate – The Day We Should Call the Day of Shamelessness Not Anti-Corruption Day
Every year, on the 9th of December, the world observes International Anti-Corruption Day.
The United Nations reminds us that corruption is not merely the theft of money — it steals futures, destroys institutions, breaks public trust, and suffocates the very soul of a nation. But the question is, does Pakistan have any moral, legal, or practical justification left to observe this day? Because in a country where those accused of looting billions rise to become the custodians of the state, where instead of facing accountability they pass unprecedented laws to protect themselves, in such a country, observing Anti-Corruption Day is not just hypocrisy — it is a national insult. What we truly celebrate here is “The Day of Shamelessness.”
Across the world, the formula to eliminate corruption is simple: transparency, independent institutions, fast-track investigations, and equal application of the law. But in Pakistan, every one of these principles has been turned upside down. Our history is flooded with moments when individuals accused of massive corruption sat in Parliament and passed laws to nullify investigations against themselves. The accused became the legislator, the criminal became the lawmaker, and justice became the casualty. Tell me, in which serious country is this even imaginable? Where a man summoned by the court sits in a parliamentary committee and drafts a law to acquit himself? Where the accused writes the rules of his own innocence? This is not corruption. This is the public execution of justice. Switzerland’s secret bank accounts, the Surrey Palace scandal, offshore companies, the Panama Papers, suspicious foreign properties — every scandal scarred Pakistan’s global reputation. Countries around the world punished their wrongdoers after Panama. Iceland’s Prime Minister resigned. Ministers across Europe and Asia were jailed. But in Pakistan? Cases drowned under political noise, judicial delays, administrative interference, and mysterious “technical faults.”
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Pakistan is perhaps the only place on earth where witnesses vanish, investigators die mysteriously, officers are transferred overnight, files are buried, and evidence “disappears.” Here, the law is soft on the powerful and merciless on the weak. Accountability is not justice — it is a political tool. So the question is valid: is observing Anti-Corruption Day here itself an act of corruption? No nation prospered through corruption. Nations rise only when justice rises. Singapore, once drowning in corruption in the 1960s, passed the toughest laws, ensured swift trials, gave investigators complete independence — and today it has the cleanest governance system in the world. Hong Kong’s ICAC revolutionized the entire society. Police, bureaucracy, politics — no sacred cows. Rwanda, a war-torn nation, rebuilt itself by enforcing zero tolerance for corruption, and today it is one of Africa’s fastest-growing economies. New Zealand is the gold standard of transparency, where even a minister resigns over the slightest ethical lapse. The formula is identical everywhere: no exceptions, no immunity, no political protection.
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Pakistan’s tragedy is not corruption alone. It is the systematic destruction of the institutions meant to fight corruption — especially the judiciary. The 26th Constitutional Amendment stripped the senior-most judge of the Supreme Court of the right to become Chief Justice — a right protected by more than a century of judicial tradition. With a single amendment, judicial independence was stabbed in the heart. Then came the 27th Amendment — the death blow. The judiciary’s suo motu power was taken away, the only weapon that empowered the courts to confront the powerful. The one legal sword that frightened governments was snapped in half. And the final assault? Giving politicians the authority to select judges. Around the world, constitutional experts call this the death of judicial independence. Today in Pakistan, judges are identified not by law but by their political leanings. Courtrooms feel like extended wings of Parliament. Federal and provincial law officers — appointed purely on political loyalty — serve power, not the constitution. Even the lawyer community, once the fiercest defender of democracy, has been split into rival camps. The executive clenches the entire system in its fist. Justice gasps for breath. The public stands abandoned, orphaned in the arena of law.
And yet, on the 9th of December, the very architects of this suffocation — the President, Prime Minister, Chief Ministers, and cabinet ministers — will stand on polished stages and deliver lectures on transparency. Clean white clothes. Big words. Meaningless slogans. Every sentence dripping with a shamelessness greater than corruption itself. This is the moment when every thinking mind asks: how can the thieves preach honesty? How can the corrupt celebrate integrity? How can the destroyers of justice speak of justice? In such times, truth emerges through poetry: when the keepers of light become the thieves, darkness has no enemy left. When justice’s hands are tied, no witness can survive. If the guilty become the preachers, no nation can remain a nation.
The real question is not why Pakistan observes Anti-Corruption Day. The real question is: why do we allow the corrupt to observe it? This nation will change the day when the people stop fearing, lawyers stop dividing, courts stop remaining silent, and rulers stop escaping accountability. And on that day, the nation will thunder: “We will not be humiliated by history — we will rewrite history.” Pakistan will celebrate a real Anti-Corruption Day, but only when the law becomes equal for all, institutions regain full independence, witnesses and investigators are protected, corrupt-protecting laws are abolished, and most importantly — when this nation stops accepting corrupt people as leaders. Until then, Anti-Corruption Day in Pakistan is not a day of reform. It is a symbol of hypocrisy, a day of denial, a day of shamelessness. The day justice truly returns, when corrupt lawmakers are replaced by just laws, only then will Pakistan’s Anti-Corruption Day be worth celebrating.
