AHEAD of a general election and as civilian politicians are subjected — rightly so — to greater scrutiny of their wealth and assets, the lopsided reality of accountability in the country has come into greater focus.
The elected representatives of the people ought to be held to higher standards of conduct than the average citizen. In fact, all those who seek public office should be held to similar standards of accountability.
So why is it that retired officers of the armed services who seek or have held public office, for example, cannot be scrutinised by the same accountability mechanisms that apply to non-military, civilian candidates?
Addressing that long-standing anomaly, the Islamabad High Court has cleared the way for the National Accountability Bureau to probe allegations of corruption against former president, retired Gen Pervez Musharraf.
Until now, NAB has interpreted its own powers restrictively and denied it had the authority to investigate retired members of the armed forces.
The landmark decision by the high court does not imply that the underlying complaint of corruption against Mr Musharraf is necessarily true.
Perhaps the former army chief does not possess assets greater than his known sources of income, as the complainant requesting a NAB inquiry has alleged.
But the court, in clarifying and expanding the powers of NAB, is helping lay down a much-needed rule of public life: accountability for all who seek or hold public office.
Indeed, for a figure who ruled Pakistan for nearly a decade, surprisingly little is known about Mr Musharraf’s wealth and assets.
While the income and perks of elected representatives, bureaucrats and even judges are public information, most estimates of the wealth and assets of senior members of the armed forces remain estimates.
A brief controversy after the retirement of former army chief Gen Raheel Sharif pertaining to a large tract of agricultural land allotted to him demonstrated that the public is actively shielded from knowing the official compensation for senior members of the military.
Opaqueness such as that, especially in an institution of enormous national importance, ought to be unacceptable in the 21st century.
The judgement is also welcome because as efforts continue to eventually replace the National Accountability Ordinance with a more robust and transparent accountability process, the principle of equal treatment of all will have to be considered.
There is simply no justification for retired members of the forces to be shielded from public accountability. Indeed, it would enhance the military’s reputation if its retired personnel seeking public office were subject to the same rules as civilians also seeking public office.
It is the willingness to carve out exceptions and special rules that has undermined the possibility of true accountability in the country over the decades.
With the issue of accountability likely to be at the centre of the next general election, new, universal rules need to be considered.
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