Justice for sale: true cost of plea bargains

Express Tribune

24-06-2025

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The Communist Manifesto (Marx, 1996) opens with a spectre, an idea so disruptive that it promised to upend entire class structures and build a society where development was free and fair. The dream, of course, was grand. But like most idealisms, it tripped over its blind spot: humans. Marx theorised systems but underestimated their participants. William Golding may have understood better: we do not destroy systems, we build them to destroy themselves.
Plea bargaining, in Pakistan, is one such self-defeating system. A mechanism born of necessity, marketed as reform, and now repurposed as cover for legalised impunity.
It started with a logic: courts are overwhelmed, cases drag on for decades, prisons are overcrowded. Let the accused confess, pay back a portion of what they stole, and be released. On paper, it's pragmatic. In practice, it's industrial-scale laundering – of money, names and responsibility.
In the United States, plea bargains function within a known structure. There's Rule 11, sentencing guidelines, judicial supervision. It is flawed, certainly, and often accused of coercing confessions from the poor. But the system at least performs its due process. There is a courtroom. There is a record. There is the illusion of checks.
Pakistan, in contrast, has no need for illusions. Section 25 of the National Accountability Ordinance allows for what is called "voluntary return" or a "plea bargain"— terms that suggest civility. What actually happens is that the accused confesses, offers a settlement figure, and in return is granted freedom. No trial. No conviction. No record. No stigma.
We don't even pretend this is justice. We just call it "recovery".
And some recover remarkably well. The public was defrauded in three separate housing projects by an individual who settled each case with NAB without conviction. Each time, he re-emerged with a fresh business name, a clean legal history, and a ready market. This is not a loophole. This is the system.
At the centre of it stands the NAB chairman. He decides who gets to bargain, what the terms are, and when the deal is done. The courts are often little more than silent endorsers. Victims are not asked. The public is not told. The media may report a number, but the documents stay tucked away.
And still, we insist on calling this deterrence. As though the quiet return of stolen wealth is the same as punishment. As though justice can be transacted like a tax dispute.
The logic unravels when you start asking who actually benefits. The accused avoids prison. The state reclaims a portion of the loss. And the public, the ones defrauded, receive nothing. No apology. No compensation. No closure. A man who steals from the state pays the state and walks away. It's restorative, yes, but only for the powerful party in the room.
The rest of us are left watching from the gallery.
In another time, we held public trials. Witch-hunts, literal ones. The Salem witch trials were brutal, but at least they were honest about their spectacle. Now we conduct no trial at all. Guilt is negotiated, not examined. Evidence is sidestepped in favour of receipts. The public is asked to believe that the return of a few billion rupees justifies the loss of accountability.
We have created a justice system with no memory. No scars. No institutional record. A man can offend, confess, pay, and return to public life as though nothing happened. Repeat offenders are welcomed back into business. Sometimes even into politics. And we nod approvingly because the docket is lighter.
And what of those who don't or can't bargain?
They rot in jails that barely qualify as habitable. The accused poor are thrown into remand cells where illness spreads faster than legal representation. Those accused of petty theft or minor offences endure years awaiting trial. They do not get settlements. They get silence.
Plea or drown. That's the real choice.
And yet, we continue to treat the return of embezzled funds as a moral victory. When Changpeng Zhao of Binance was fined $4.3 billion in the United States, he still served time, albeit only four months. Sam Bankman-Fried, the FTX founder who refused to settle, got 24 years. The contrast is staggering, but also revealing. In the US, even the largest financial criminals receive punishment, but it still reflects the same inequality: cooperation is rewarded, wealth softens consequences, and high-profile plea deals come with PR statements, not moral reckoning. It's not a triumph of justice, it's a controlled descent.
But even that descent exists. In Pakistan, there is no fall at all. Accountability ends with a cheque. The wealthier the crime, the better the outcome.
This isn't just unsustainable, it's corrosive. It erodes what little faith remains in institutions. It reinforces the idea that laws are for the poor, and negotiations are for the elite. It teaches that crime, when well-funded, is not only survivable, it's reversible.
Plea bargaining doesn't need to be abolished. But it must be reformed beyond recognition. All agreements must be made public. Repeat offenders must be disqualified. Judicial oversight must be meaningful, not procedural. And the power to investigate must be distinct from the power to pardon. Most importantly, victims. Whether individuals or the public at large, must have a place at the table.
Until then, what we have is not justice. It is a system of selective mercy, reserved for those who can afford it.
Because here, justice isn't blind. It knows exactly who you are. And how much you're worth.