Pakistan’s anti-terror laws: fixed and revamped many times, but never applied practically

Karachi 

Anti-terrorism laws have existed in the country in different forms almost throughout the country’s history and subjected to much fixing and twisting over the years, but the most essential element has always remained missing – implementation.

The Sindh police’s Counter-Terrorism Department compiled research papers on the country’s anti-terror laws to come up with solutions for speedy trials.

“We compiled these research papers so that the challenges in implementing anti-terror laws could be overcome,” Additional IG Sanaullah Abbasi told The News on Sunday.

“Even though counter-terrorism laws exist, their implementation has always remained a problem.”

Pakistan has had more than its fair share of responses to the period of turbulence in the form of counter terrorism laws, amendments of laws, constitutional responses and new structure and policies, even though it even has a national security policy now.

It was in the year 1949 that an Act called the Public Representative Offices (Disqualification) Act 1949 was promulgated – a law used by the government to curb political violence.

In 1975, the Suppression of Terrorist Activities Ordinance was passed in response to a raging separatist insurgency in Balochistan. The law was enacted by Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and remained the mainstay of tackling insurgent and terrorist activities in Sindh and Punjab until its repeal in 1997 and in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (then NWFP) and Balochistan until 2001.

Special courts under the Speedy Trials Ordinance 1987 were formed - a system set up for speedy trial of cases deemed as important by the government but not implemented extensively.

In 1992, the Terrorist-Affected Areas (Special Courts) Act 1992 was passed. Though this law was largely ineffective, it was an indication of the fact that the State was becoming aware that unruly areas were developing in the country as set out by the rationale of this law.

It read, “If the Government is of the opinion that offences of the nature specified in the Schedule are being committed in any area on such a scale and in such a manner that it is expedient for the purpose of coping with such offences to have recourse to the provisions of this Act, it may by Notification declare such area to be a terrorist-affected area.” Special courts were set up for trial in such areas.

It was in 1997 that the government formulated the Anti-Terrorism Act 1997, a law which included a broader definition of terrorism.

It was enacted after the January 1997 bombing by Mehram Ali, a member of an Islamic organisation.

Sectarian terrorism was the main strain of the terrorism faced by Pakistan in the late 80s and until 2002, the main reason for the promulgation of the ATA, though the law has since been used in a much broader context of terrorism.

However, sectarian terrorism never relay quiescent and has surged again in the past decade.

In 1999, when another amendment was made to the Anti Terrorism Ordinance, authorising anti-terrorism courts in the entire country to include several other provisions of the Pakistan Criminal Code, broadening their ambit of crimes tried as terrorism.

During the same year, another amendment instituted two new special courts at the Lahore and Karachi high courts respectively, headed by a high court judge having the power to transfer, claim or readmit any case within that province. Later in 2000, some administrative arrangements were set out.

In 2001, it further expanded the ambit of terrorism by introducing provisions to enable the government to proscribe an organisation when there was a reason to believe that it was linked to terrorism.

In 2002, a move to transform the single person bench of the anti-terrorism courts to a three-member bench was attempted.

Besides the originally envisaged high court, session court, or additional sessions court judge as a member, the second member would have been a judicial magistrate first class and the third member an officer of the Pakistan Army not below the rank of Lt Colonel.

The same year, an amendment was made to the anti-terrorism law, empowering police to detain anyone listed on the government’s terrorism list (activists and office bearers of proscribed groups) for up to one year without filing specific criminal charges. The amendment also prohibited suspected terrorists from visiting public places.

In 2004, another amendment was made wherein the maximum jail term for a supporter of militancy was increased from 14 years to life imprisonment.

The aim was to ostensibly hit at the support network of terrorism and discourage those providing fiscal, logistics and infrastructure support to terrorists.

The same year, another amendment made penal clauses and sentencing for terrorist offences more stringent.

In 2007 and 2008, amendments came in the form of the Prevention of Electronic Crimes and the 3D Policy of Dialogue, Deterrence and Development.

Then in 2009, the definition of an act of terrorism was expanded further by including attacks on government premises, official installations, schools, hospitals and other public property.

Having learnt lessons from the Swat insurgency, terrorising public, resisting armed troops and preaching ideas through FM stations without government approval were also included in the definition Section 6 of the ATA as acts of terror.

In 2010, the definition of terrorism was further expanded – a salient feature was the inclusion of attacks on the business community or extorting money from it as terrorism, presumably in response to the frequency of such incidents in Karachi.

Another pertinent provision was that if members of a proscribed organisation formed another entity under a different name with similar purposes, the new entity would also be deemed a proscribed organisation by default.

During the same year, another amendment called Anti Money Laundering Act was introduced, though this is widely considered to be a law combating the financing of terrorism.

Between 2013 and 2015, more amendments were made including The Fair Trial Act, the National Counter Terrorism Authority Act, the Pakistan Protection Ordinance, and the Protection of Pakistan Act (2014).

In January 2015, the National Action Plan (NAP) was promulgated by the government after the Army Public School, Peshawar attack to launch a crackdown on terrorism and to supplement the ongoing anti-terrorist offensives.

Some of the salient features included the establishment of special courts for two years for the speedy trial of terror suspects, strengthening and activation of the National Counter Terrorism Authority (Nacta), countering hate speech, extremist material and terrorist financing, establishing and deploying a dedicated counter terrorism force, registration and regulation of madrasas, and revamping and reforming of the criminal justice system to strengthen the counter-terrorism departments including granting powers to them to intercept terrorist communications.

However, most of the provisions of NAP were already set down in the Pakistan National Internal Security Policy (NISP), which has remained largely unimplemented throughout its existence.

The NISP in turn, has reiterated many objectives which have already existed for many years within legislation like the ATA but have not been fulfilled because of the lack of implementation.

“Even a cursory glance at the plethora of laws and policies, present and past is enough to suggest that Pakistan does not really suffer from any lack of legislation, but it’s the implementation that’s missing,” said Abbasi.
—Part 1 of 2