Pakistan court uses Comic Sans font in Imran Khan vs Bushra Bibi case, eliciting laughs

A Pakistani court has acquitted former prime minister Imran Khan of illegal marriage charges, Pakistani media reported on Saturday. Despite this, Khan remains in jail on charges of inciting riots. A local court in Islamabad “dismissed the charges” against Khan in the Iddat case, but what caught everyone’s attention was the official document declaring the innocence of Khan and his wife Bushra Bibi. It was written in “Comic Sans” font.

What? Comic Sans used in official documentation? Yep, eagle-eyed readers noticed the unusual font choice and it quickly became a laughing stock online.

The court order quickly went viral, with one person writing: “Comic Sans court documents… Pakistan… please,” while another quipped: “How dishonest this country is,” and a third questioned: “Why this font? Is this the standard of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan’s documents?” A fourth simply wrote: “Comic Sans? No way…”

Though Pakistan does not have an official font style for legal documents, several fonts are preferred for readability and court approval, including Arial, Times New Roman, Century, Verdana, Courier New, etc. Hence, the use of Comic Sans was quite unexpected.

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Interestingly, this is not the first time Pakistan has been in the headlines over its font choices. In 2017, then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was stripped of his duties by the Supreme Court over a typeface dispute. The scandal, dubbed “Fontgate,” erupted when documents prepared by the Sharif family to disinvest the prime minister from ownership of four luxury properties in London were found to have been forged. The documents, allegedly prepared in February 2006, used the Calibri font, which was not commercially available at the time. This prompted headline writers and Twitter users to quip that Pakistan was now “Sans Sharif.”

So while Imran Khan’s acquittal may have been major news, Comic Sans’s fiasco added a mild, albeit ironic, twist to the tale.

Interestingly, this is not the first time Pakistan has been in the headlines over its font choices. In 2017, then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was stripped of his duties by the Supreme Court over a typeface dispute. The scandal, dubbed “Fontgate,” erupted when documents prepared by the Sharif family to disinvest the prime minister from ownership of four luxury properties in London were found to have been forged. The documents, allegedly prepared in February 2006, used the Calibri font, which was not commercially available at the time. This prompted headline writers and Twitter users to quip that Pakistan was now “Sans Sharif.”

So while Imran Khan’s acquittal may have been major news, Comic Sans’s fiasco added a mild, albeit ironic, twist to the tale.