ISLAMABAD:
President Mamnoon Hussain signed the Protection of Pakistan Bill (PPB) 2014 into a law on Friday as political parties continue to mull over the option of challenging the act in the Supreme Court. The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) has accepted the law, despite earlier reservations and concerns, but the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) is still divided on the issue.
The new law, which Human Rights Watch (HRW) says violates the country’s international legal obligations, is tough on terror and doubles the maximum sentence for terrorist offences to 20 years. It also allows security forces to hold suspects for up to 60 days without disclosing their whereabouts or allegations against them.
The PPB will be applicable for the next two years.
The National Assembly passed the bill on July 2, two days after it was unanimously passed in the Senate. Earlier, the government had failed to get all members of the opposition on board, as the Jamaat-e-Islami opposed the bill in the lower house, while the PTI abstained from voting. JUI-F also boycotted the voting process.
JI general secretary Liaquat Baloch told The Express Tribune that his party would challenge the act in the apex court, because it negates the fundamental rights of citizens.
The law also faced resistance from the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), which condemned the government for passing the PPB.
Separately, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) has now postponed its earlier decision to challenge the controversial legislation in the Supreme Court. In April this year, PTI had announced to challenge the act in the apex court soon after the government had it passed in the National Assembly amid protests by opposition parties.
PTI’s central information secretary Dr Shireen Mazari said the party had postponed its decision, citing the many changes made in the draft.
However, the legal minds of the party, including senior lawyer Hamid Khan, proposed to the leadership that the bill should be challenged in the court once it is passed by both houses of parliament and becomes law.
They believed that the Supreme Court would dismiss PTI’s petition on the grounds that PPB was only a proposed law.
Hamid Khan termed the legislation void, saying that this law would have serious repercussions. Whenever such powers have been given to security agencies, they did misuse them, he argued. “This law is no different from India’s Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA).” The controversial TADA, which was in force between 1985 and 1995 aimed at curbing Punjab insurgency and was later applied to all of India.
Earlier, the government had promulgated two ordinances, one Protection of Pakistan Ordinance 2013 introduced in October last year and the other Protection of Pakistan (Amendment) Ordinance 2014 in January this year.
The government later introduced the PPB in the lower house after combining both of these ordinances.
Muttahida Qaumi Movement’s Senator Farogh Naseem and MNA Abdul Rashid Godil did not comment when The Express Tribune contacted them. Although MQM voted in favour of the legislation, its party chief Altaf Hussain issued a dissenting statement against the bill.
Separately, JUI-F’s Qari Muhammad Yousaf – an ally of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz – said, “We are not happy with this legislation and we also boycotted the voting process, but the media did not give us proper coverage.”
Published in The Express Tribune, July 12th, 2014.
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