Controversial legislation: Opposition waters down terror law

Senators categorise types of suspects, suggest criminal and judicial procedures.

ISLAMABAD:

After vehemently opposing the Pakistan Protection Ordinance, the joint opposition in the Senate on Friday came up with a diluted version of the PPO: Protection of Pakistani Citizens Act, 2014 (PPCA). The proposed law aims to differentiate between foreign and local militants or terror suspects, a unique proposition to the legal lexicon in the fight against militancy.

The controversial PPO has triggered a debate among all political parties in both houses of Parliament as well as human rights organisations. “The bill cannot be accepted in its current form,” said PPP Senator Aitzaz Ahsan. Unveiling the PPCA at a press conference, he argued, “There can be no room for state terrorism in the fight against terrorism.”

Three categories have been introduced in the suggested amendments: foreign combatants, those foreigners that have taken up arms against the state of Pakistan; militant, any person that takes up/encourages taking up arms against Pakistan or a foreign state; an ordinary citizen of Pakistan who is suspected of militant activity.

“The rights of the first two categories are somewhat restricted under the proposed law,” admitted Senator Afrasiab Khattak, while talking to The Express Tribune. “However, this would remain under the ambit of the Constitution.”

The burden of proof will be upon both foreign combatants and militants “on existence of reasonable evidence”. While any person caught wearing a suicide vest, planting a bomb or involved in targeted killings will also be presumed guilty, he explained. Cell phones that contain call logs and messages pertaining to any offence will also be considered as evidence.



While the remand period has been decreased from 90 to 45 days in the proposed law, the suspect will be produced intermittently and the remand will not be extended more than three times.

Senator Raza Rabbani told The Express Tribune that they have tried to introduce judicial oversight. Where the government’s bill had given the freedom of shoot-at-sight, the PPCA states that the security official has to witness the act before shooting down the suspect. “If death occurs, there will be a judicial commission, headed by no less than a sessions judge who will investigate the circumstances,” he said.

When a search operation is inevitable, the memo of the items recovered will have to be presented before a local magistrate within 24 hours.

The powers to appoint judges for special courts, which is the authority of the federal government under the PPO, has been given to the chief justice of Pakistan who, after consulting the four provincial high court chief justices, will make the appointment.

Appeals against the decision of the special courts are allowed to be made in high courts, which was previously only restricted to the Supreme Court, under the suggested amendments.

The amendments aim at denying the government the right to apply the law to designated areas only but suggest it should be applied to the whole country. In addition, it also stresses for new legislation after two years of its implementation, rather than getting an approval from parliament to extend the period of the law.

The PPCA has been handed over to government through the Minister of Science and Technology Zahid Hamid by the four political parties, PPP, Awami National Party, Balochistan National Party-Azad and Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid.

The discussion on the inclusion of the amendments with the government is to begin next week.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 24^th, 2014.