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Justice & Law Quote by Imran Khan

"At the moment we have a ruling class that has one law and the people the other"

About this Quote

A clean accusation dressed up as plain speech: Imran Khan’s line turns political grievance into a moral binary that’s easy to grasp and hard to shake. “At the moment” signals urgency and contingency, a claim that this isn’t how things must be, but how they’re being run right now. It invites a remedy. Then comes the friction point: “a ruling class.” Not “government,” not “administration” - a class, implying an entrenched ecosystem of elites: politicians, generals, judges, tycoons, fixers. Power isn’t just held; it’s inherited, traded, and protected.

The phrase “one law… and the people the other” is doing deliberate rhetorical work. It compresses complex debates about accountability, corruption, selective prosecution, and impunity into a single, vivid image: two parallel legal realities. The subtext is less about statutes than about outcomes. Courts, police, and bureaucracy become instruments that land differently depending on who you are. It’s a populist move, but not a cheap one; it frames inequality as betrayal, not mere unfairness.

Context matters: Khan’s politics have repeatedly leaned on an anti-corruption mandate and a promise to break Pakistan’s patronage networks. The line also functions defensively. When a leader faces legal pressure, alleging “two laws” recasts personal jeopardy as public injustice, converting a case into a cause. That’s why it lands: it speaks to a widely felt suspicion in Pakistan’s political culture - that accountability is often episodic, weaponized, and negotiated - while positioning the speaker as the instrument of correction rather than another beneficiary of the system.

Quote Details

TopicJustice
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Citation Formats

APA Style (7th ed.)
Khan, Imran. (2026, January 15). At the moment we have a ruling class that has one law and the people the other. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/at-the-moment-we-have-a-ruling-class-that-has-one-160290/

Chicago Style
Khan, Imran. "At the moment we have a ruling class that has one law and the people the other." FixQuotes. January 15, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/at-the-moment-we-have-a-ruling-class-that-has-one-160290/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"At the moment we have a ruling class that has one law and the people the other." FixQuotes, 15 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/at-the-moment-we-have-a-ruling-class-that-has-one-160290/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.

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About the Author

Imran Khan

Imran Khan (born November 25, 1952) is a Politician from Pakistan.

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