ATA ruling

No terror convict is legally entitled to any form of general or special remission or pardon, rules Balochistan High Court, citing Section 21-F of the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA) of 1997. The law leaves no ambiguity, explicitly excluding terrorists from eligibility for clemency or sentence reduction, but a divisional bench of the learned court has had to take several petitioners - who had filed clemency appeals in 2023 and 2024 - to a time in year 2001 when Section 21-F was inserted in ATA of 1997, which strictly outlaws clemency or sentence reduction for terror convicts. All petitions for clemency thus stood dismissed.

The law, as recapped under the instructive BHC ruling, not only makes a perfect legal sense but also aligns well with nationalistic sensibilities and security concerns among the general public. The amendment made to the law - by inserting Section 21-F as a deliberate legislative act aimed at ensuring public safety - makes for a fitting deterrent in the context of a country that has long been mired in an uncontrollable menace of terrorism, and suffered like no other in the world.

However, it's pertinent to raise a caveat here: the application of ATA should be strictly confined to hardcore terrorists. Contrarily, we have seen the Act being used profusely - even in case of street crime and domestic violence. Moreover, governments tend to use it against political opponents. This raises another question: what actually defines an act of terrorism? While the same law, the one under discussion, does define terrorism, but this definition has been the subject of debate among experts for being ambiguous. So, while it's settled under the law that a terror convict deserves no leniency in the form of pardon or any remission in sentence, the law must also be revisited to differentiate between a hardcore terrorist and an ordinary criminal.