Pakistan Court Uses Comic Sans Font in Imran Khan and Bushra Bibi Case, Sparks Humour

A Pakistan court has acquitted ex-Prime Minister Imran Khan of his conviction for illegal marriage, Pakistani news outlets reported on Saturday. Despite this, he remains jailed over allegations of inciting riots. The Islamabad District and Sessions Court “dismissed charges” against Khan in the Iddat case, but what caught everyone’s attention was the official document declaring Khan and his wife Bushra Bibi’s acquittal – it was written in ‘Comic Sans’ font.

Wait, what? Comic Sans in an official document? Yes, eagle-eyed readers spotted this unusual font choice, and it quickly became a source of amusement online.

The court order document soon went viral, with one person writing, “Court documents in comic sans…Pakistan..pls.” Another quipped, “The way this country is so not serious,” while a third questioned, “Why that font ??? IS THIS THE LEVEL OF DOCUMENTATION IN ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF PAKISTAN???” A fourth simply said, “Comic Sans? Can’t be real…”

Although there’s no official font style for legal documents in Pakistan, some fonts are preferred for their readability and court approval, including Arial, Times New Roman, Century, Verdana, and Courier New. So, the use of Comic Sans was definitely unexpected.

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Interestingly, this isn’t the first time Pakistan has made headlines for its font choices. Back in 2017, then-Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was disqualified from office by the Supreme Court due to a typeface controversy. Dubbed “Fontgate,” the scandal erupted when a document produced by the Sharif family to distance the prime minister from ownership of four upscale London properties was found to be forged. The document, supposedly from February 2006, used the Calibri font, which wasn’t commercially available at that time. This led headline writers and Twitter users to quip that Pakistan was now “Sans Sharif.”

So, while Imran Khan’s acquittal may have been serious news, the Comic Sans debacle provided a light-hearted, albeit ironic, twist to the tale.