The courts come back

The return of military courts, whose two-year tenure had lapsed earlier this year, seems all but assured after the National Assembly passed the 28th      Amendment to the constitution – which grants the military the emergency authority to expeditiously dispose of cases related to terrorism for the next two years. Only four MNAs voted against the amendment while the JUI-F, which has reservations about the wording of the amendment, abstained. Passage should have been guaranteed in the Senate but,       on Wednesday, the Senate vote had to be deferred because there weren’t enough members present. The Senate will now consider the constitutional amendment next week, after which the courts can resume hearing cases. The lack of opposition to the reintroduction of military courts has been startling, with near-unanimous support for bringing the courts back across the political spectrum. The JUI-F’s objections were not to the courts themselves but to the impression that terrorism appeared linked with religion and sect      in the amendment.    The PPP had initially come out in apparent opposition to bringing back the courts but quickly – and expectedly – did a U-turn. No one was under any impression that the party had the stomach to act with consistency on the matter; and the party eventually decided to support the amendment with only minor objections.

Many of the original problems with the courts have not been addressed. Defenders of the courts have introduced a new term to the political lexicon – that of ‘jet-black terrorists’. These militants are supposed to be the worst of the worst, people who do not deserve the protections afforded by regular courts. It has also been argued that the courts will have a deterrent effect.         But this has been problematic on both experiential and logical grounds.        The PPP says it only supported the reinstatement after it made sure that the courts will be more transparent this time and that the justice they provide will not be summary in nature. It is true that the courts now have to make public the names of those who are charged and the accused will be allowed to retain counsel. A parliamentary security committee will also be created to monitor the performance of military courts. The proceedings, as is obvious, will still be carried out in secret and have lower standards of evidence than regular courts. The basic questions regarding the courts still remain unanswered. Few have asked how and if the     courts have been indisputably successful in the stated goal of defeating the militant threat. In addition, there is the matter of how repeatedly extending the tenure       of the courts also distracts from the much-needed reforms in our judicial system. It is here that the failure of civilian leadership is most glaring and this can be seen to have led to a situation where the military courts again can be conveniently perceived as the most effective means to prosecute and punish terrorists. But these courts were supposed to be a temporary measure until we sorted our judicial system out. Unfortunately, there still seems little interest in that area.