Lahore High Court (LHC) sought replies from the federal and the provincial governments last week over a petition demanding lifting of the moratorium on executions.
Justice Mehmood Maqbool Bajwa of the LHC heard the arguments of the petitioner’s counsel, Azhar Sidique, last week.
“It is the incompetence of both the federal and provincial governments that dangerous terrorists who have been given death sentences by anti-terrorism courts have been in prisons for many years. Around 8,000 death row prisoners are in various prisons of the country,” the petitioner’s counsel told the court.
“The government is silent over the implementation of their sentences... this cannot be allowed. The law must be allowed to take its own course.” Siddique said.
“More than 700 executions were carried out across the world in 2013,” he said. Of them, 226 people had been sentenced to capital punishment in the year 2013,” the counsel said.
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Last week, the LHC dismissed two petitions which had been filed by Sardar Ayaz Sadiq, speaker of the National Assembly.
One of the petitions he had filed sought contempt proceedings against the election tribunal’s judge and the second challenged the tribunal’s verdict.
The petitioner stated that the order to recount votes cast in the general elections last year, issued by the election tribunal, headed Kazim Malik, was a violation of the Representation of People Act 1976.
He pointed out that the tribunal had issued recounting orders without first deciding about the objections raised on the petition, which was a violation of Supreme Court’s order.
The petitioner said in issuing his order of November 21, the judge had refused to follow the SC directives and was thus guilty of gross contempt of court.
He requested the court to annul the recounting order and initiate contempt proceedings against the judge.
Justice Ijazul Ahsan of the Lahore High Court ruled that the petitions were non-maintainable in the light of superior courts’ decisions, which barred courts from interfering in election matters.
Nishan-i-Haider:
A petition was filed in the LHC last week, seeking directions to the federal government to award Nishan-i-Haidar to the principal of the Army Public School in Peshawar that was attacked by terrorists on December 16.
Petitioner Javed Iqbal Jafri filed the petition, stating that Principal Saira Qazi had sacrificed her life to save her students.
“She went to the class rooms to protect the children instead of fleeing. The terrorists then set her on fire,” he said.
“Nishan-i-Haidar has never been awarded to a woman. Islam gives equal rights to men and women. So a woman should not be ignored in this regard,” he said.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 22nd, 2014.
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