LAHORE: The expected return of Nawaz Sharif remains the talk of the town, but legal opinion on what he can and cannot do upon his return seems to be divided.

Criminal lawyers believe that Mr Sharif would have to go straight to prison, while sources within the PML-N’s legal team suggest they have ‘a way out’ and that the three-time former PM would not be required to go back to jail.

In 2019, a two-judge bench of the Lahore High Court — comprising Justice Ali Baqar Najafi and Justice Sardar Ahmad Naeem — had allowed him to travel abroad, initially for a period of four weeks, which was extendable subject to medical opinion.

“One can find all the answers on a careful reading of the court orders allowing Nawaz Sharif to go abroad for medical treatment,” a member of the PML-N chief’s legal team told Dawn.

He seemed to be referring to the text of the undertaking submitted by Nawaz Sharif before the LHC, where he had vowed to “return to Pakistan as per my past record to face the process of law and justice within four weeks or as soon as I am declared healthy and fit to travel back to Pakistan by my doctors”. His brother Shehbaz had also submitted a similar undertaking.

Earlier, the LHC had granted the elder Sharif bail in the Chaudhry Sugar Mills case, while the Islamabad High Court had suspended the sentence of the former premier for eight weeks in the Al Azizia case. Both decisions were made on medical grounds. In the latter case, however, the court had said that Punjab government should be approached for an extension in bail. The IHC had already suspended his sentences in the Avenfield reference in 2018.

But former Supreme Court Bar Association secretary Aftab Ahmad Bajwa told Dawn on Wednesday that Nawaz Sharif would have to go back to jail upon his return to the country, as he went abroad from the jail.

According to Mr Bajwa, the PML-N leader was not only a proclaimed offender but also a convict, and there was no provision in the law or precedent to grant protective bail to a convict.

However, he concluded, anything can happen in Pakistan and the situation may change on the day.

Although they were not prepared to speak on the record, a member of Nawaz Sharif’s legal team told Dawn that a petition is likely to be filed in the LHC on behalf of the PML-N supremo for the grant of a protective or transit bail, days before his arrival at Lahore airport. He said the petition wherein a two-judge bench had allowed Nawaz to go abroad was still pending before the court and, in all likelihood, the same bench would be approached through a civil miscellaneous application.

He also claimed that the LHC could be asked for interim protective bail on the pretext of traveling to Islamabad to surrender before the IHC, hoping that the high court would suspend Nawaz’s arrest warrants after his appearance and subsequently grant bail, either on medical or hardship grounds.

Published in Dawn, October 5th, 2023