On Saturday, the Supreme Court explained its decision to refrain from live-streaming the proceedings of the intra-court appeals (ICAs) filed by the federal government.
These appeals challenge the court’s September 15 judgment, which struck down amendments to the anti-graft laws, due to concerns that the live-streaming facility might be politically misused.
In 2022, the Pakistan Democratic Movement-led government enacted amendments to the National Accountability Ordinance (NAO) 1999. These changes included reducing the terms of the NAB chairman and prosecutor general to three years, limiting NAB’s jurisdiction to cases involving over Rs500 million, and transferring all pending inquiries, investigations, and trials to the relevant authorities.
In response, Imran Khan filed a petition in 2022, arguing that the amendments were designed to benefit influential individuals and legitimize corruption.
The petition claimed that the changes would nullify corruption cases against high-ranking officials such as the president, prime minister, chief ministers, and ministers, and allow convicted public office-holders to overturn their convictions.