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- April 24, 2024
- Kainat Shakeel
- 0
The Supreme Court’s six-member bench decided on Wednesday to refer the case to the bench reconstitution committee to allow a larger bench to consider a series of intra-court appeals (ICAs) against the court’s unanimous decision on October 23 to void the military trials of civilians implicated in the May 9 riots. The event occurred when the current bench, which is comprised of Justices Muhammad Ali Mazhar, Syed Azhar Hasan Rizvi, Shahid Waheed, Musarrat Hilali, and Irfan Saadat Khan, and is led by Justice Aminuddin Khan, began considering appeals.
More than a hundred people are on trial in this case for their alleged involvement in attacks on army posts during the riots that broke out after former Prime Minister Imran Khan was arrested on May 9 of last year. A five-member Supreme Court bench that included Justices Ijazul Ahsan, Munib Akhtar, Yahya Afridi, Syed Mazahar Ali Akbar Naqvi, and Ayesha Malik unanimously ruled last year in a highly acclaimed decision that trying the accused civilians in military courts was beyond the bounds of the Constitution. The Supreme Court had ruled that the accused would be tried in criminal courts with appropriate jurisdiction that were set up according to the land’s regular or special laws, rather than in military courts.
But on December 13, the Supreme Court heard a series of appeals and, in a 5-1 majority decision, conditionally stayed its own Oct. 23 ruling (albeit from a different bench) pending a final decision. The federal administration that was in temporary office at the time, along with the province governments of Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and Balochistan, had filed appeals against the verdict. Sindh has refuted submitting an alleged appeal on the same case and was left out of the earlier petitions that were considered. Additionally, the Ministry of Defense had filed an ICA, asking the Supreme Court to halt the implementation of the ruling while the appeal was pending.
Faisal Siddiqui filed a petition in January to prevent the federal and provincial governments from hiring a private attorney to represent some of the individuals contesting the trials. The ICAs were referred back to a three-judge committee on January 29th by Justice Sardar Tariq Masood, who has since retired, to establish a larger bench. March saw the request for an early hearing of the appeals by former CJP Jawwad S. Khawaja, one of the petitioners challenging the military trials, who said that the ongoing detention of civilians in military custody was “beyond compensation.”
The SC had requested information from the federal government regarding suspects who had been found not guilty or who were in the process of being released from custody during a later hearing. KP Additional Advocate General Syed Kauser Ali Shah had filed a letter during the same session stating the province government’s plan to withdraw the appeal against the Oct 23 ruling. The SC had granted military courts permission to render reserved verdicts in the cases on March 27. Additionally, it had changed the Dec. 13 injunction, stating that military courts could hold trials but couldn’t find a suspect guilty or not guilty until government-instituted ICAs were pending.
Following this, on April 8, Attorney General for Pakistan (AGP) Mansoor Usman Awan provided a list of 20 suspects who had been freed to celebrate Eidul Fitr with their families. These suspects had completed the majority of their sentences, with Chief of the Army Staff (COAS) Gen. Asim Munir remitting the remaining portion of their punishment. Of the twenty, four were from KP and the other sixteen were from Punjab. April 6 in Punjab and April 7 in KP, respectively, saw their release. AGP Awan and the attorney representing the former CJP Khawaja, Khwaja Ahmed Husain, came before the court today. Barrister Aitzaz Ahsan, senior attorney and one of the petitioners contesting the trials, was also in attendance.