Plea bargain
Plea bargain as a formal legal provision was introduced in Pakistan by the National Accountability Ordinance 1999, an anti-corruption law. A special feature of this plea bargain is that the accused applies for it, accepting guilt, and offers to return the proceeds of corruption as determined by investigators/prosecutors. After an endorsement by the Chairman National Accountability Bureau, the request is presented before the court, which decides whether it should be accepted or not. If the request for plea bargain is accepted by the court, the accused stands convicted but neither is sentenced if in trial nor undergoes any sentence previously pronounced by a lower court if in appeal. The accused is disqualified to take part in elections, hold any public office, or obtain a loan from any bank; the accused is also dismissed from service if a government official.
Fine (penalty)
Before 1 September 1990, all traffic violations were punished via the criminal law. The suspects were first offered a sort of plea bargain. This mostly contains a fine. If the suspect didn't pay the fine of this plea bargain, the public prosecutor had to open a criminal case, otherwise he wasn't authorized to collect the fine through force. The case had to be withdrawn when the capacity of the courts or the prosecutor's office didn't allow the start of a criminal case for a traffic violation. This was the case very often. This situation led to a negative spiral, because traffic offenders hoped and expected their case to be withdrawn, and didn't pay the plea bargain fine. This led to a growing pressure on the capacity of the courts, which causes more sepots (decisions not to prosecute). This encouraged more offenders not to pay, etc.