The Supreme Court (SC) on Wednesday directed Attorney General for Pakistan (AGP) Mansoor Usman Awan to seek directives from the government regarding the right of appeal in military courts.
The direction came as a six-member Supreme Court (SC) bench, headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Umar Ata Bandial and consisting Justice Ijazul Ahsan, Justice Munib Akhtar, Justice Yahya Afridi, Justice Sayyed Mazahar Ali Akbar Naqvi and Justice Ayesha A. Malik, heard a set of pleas challenging the military trials of civilians.
A day earlier, CJP Bandial had observed that civilians should not be put through the rigours and harshness of military courts, since they enjoy certain constitutional protections, and besides, such trials were not according to the Constitution.
“The military law is a tough law and meant to be different from the ordinary law that may be good for military personnel only,” the CJP had observed. One of the concerns about such trials, the CJP observed, was that the verdicts of a military court were not open to the public, nor subject to judicial review.
The observation came when AGP Awan cited a June 23 note by Justice Yahya Afridi, in which the judge had urged the CJP to consider reconstituting a full court consisting of all available judges to hear the matter.
The chief justice had also turned down the government’s request to form a full court to hear the petitions, explaining the unavailability of judges. He had also expressed satisfaction over the treatment of suspects facing military trials.
Earlier this week, the federal government had argued that the trial of those accused of violence against the armed forces under the Pakistan Army Act (PAA) 1952 was an apt and proportionate response under the constitutional framework and statutory regime.
