Protection of Pakistan Ordinance challenged in Supreme Court

Petitioner says law violates basic human rights.

ISLAMABAD: The contentious Protection of Pakistan Ordinance (PPO), which grants sweeping powers of arrest and detention to security forces, was challenged in the Supreme Court on Wednesday, Express News reported.

Social worker and advocate Mehmood Akhtar Naqvi filed the petition in the apex court, stating the law violates basic human rights. Naqvi has raised several objections in his petition and said the law was formulated and passed in haste.

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), with support of other opposition parties, had also threatened to challenge the bill in the top court.

The ordinance was rushed through the National Assembly on April 7 despite strong resistance from the opposition benches. The government is expected to table PPO in the Senate on April 14 where opposition parties, though divided, have an overwhelming majority in the house.

PPO – approved by President Mamnoon Hussain last year – is a decree that declares all peace-disrupting elements as ‘enemies of the state’, and states protection of life to be the state’s top priority.