If Sharif and his son-in-law Imran Ali Yousaf’s statement are not deemed to comply with the law, they will have to pay the defendant £30,000 as litigation costs incurred during the case.
Pakistan prime minister Shehbaz Sharif is a plaintiff who won on preliminary point in Feb 21 as I read it.
If he is brainiac he should withdraw his plaint or claim based upon each party to pay its own cost, if available, albeit he possibly spent £1M on legal bills in 3 years since he started the action.
However, if the reason for application for satay was to delay in decision making by court, the interlocutory decision will be appealed but appeal court may or may not grant temporary stay of proceedings.
Defendant newspaper has gained forensic advantage as merely because courts in Pakistan have acquitted cannot automatically weaken defendant’s defence of truth in defamation claim. Civil litigation has its own standard of proof of whether defamation has occurred or not, a reason confidential compromised solution may be attractive for plaintiff Sharif, (though his son in law Imran, a co-plaintiff may continue his matter so costs of litigation may be recovered upon success).
Diwanee dewana karti hay, is quoted who you mount civil litigation as it has its own life and vicissitudes.
Lawyers and judges in Pakistan are unfamiliar with defamation laws as there is no such litigation or law developed in this respect.
Having selected a forum in UK for jurisdiction when in opposition, Shehbaz is now stuck with the ‘kambal’ which must shrug off at first opportunity at any cost if I was listened to or he had sound advice on the subject.
He should not throw good money with bad, as the outcome until he is PM is unlikely to be favourable to his fame, hence the double edge.
A British court rejected Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s plea for an adjournment in a defamation case filed against the newspaper Daily Mail. The court also refused to give the Pakistan premier more time and demanded an immediate response.
Justice Matthew Nicklin of the London High Court of Justice, hearing the case, threw away the petition and ordered the duo to submit a response and deposit the said amount by November 23.
If Sharif and his son-in-law Imran Ali Yousaf’s statement are not deemed to comply with the law, they will have to pay the defendant i.e Daily Mail $35,000 (£30,000) as litigation costs incurred during the case.
“The first claimant [Sharif] must pay the defendant’s [paper’s] costs of and occasioned by a) the stay application b) his original reply (including the costs arising from the process by which extensions of time were sought and agreed in respect of the same,” read the judgement.
Reportedly, the court was hearing a petition filed by Sharif, seeking a stay order in a defamation case brought by him against the publication two years ago.
In 2020, Sharif claimed that the publication had levelled ‘grotesque allegations’ against him in a story.
Reportedly, in July 2019, a story appeared in the newspaper which accused Shehbaz, the former Punjab chief minister and his family of stealing and laundering millions of pounds of the £500 million aid money given by the Department for International Development (DFID) for the victims of Pakistan’s 2005 earthquake.
“The article is gravely defamatory of Shehbaz, including false allegations that he misappropriated UK taxpayers’ money in the form of Department for International Development (DFID) aid intended for the victims of the devastating 2005 earthquake in Pakistan. Shehbaz denies these allegations,” read the legal notice served by Shehbaz’s counsel to Daily Mail at the time.
By Pervaiz Butter and news agencies
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Coverpage’s editorial stance
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