Missing persons’ cases

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court (SC) on Thursday, during the hearing of missing persons cases, remarked that the government must implement the Constitution and if it failed inthis regard, the court knew well how to get it implemented.

While heading the two-member apex court bench, Justice Jawwad S Khawaja remarked, “May be some other issue is involved therein. A strange impression is building up. The federal government has to implement the Constitution. If it will not be done, we know how to implement it and we will implement it. We will not conduct in-camera proceedings as it can give birth to misperceptions.”

The SC accepted the Ministry of Defence’s plea about fixing for hearing all missing persons cases, including the case of 35 missing persons lifted from the Malakand Internment Centre, before one bench and referred the matter to the chief justice for constitution of a larger bench.

The court requested the CJ that four different benches were hearing the cases of missing persons. The legal and constitutional issues and questions in these cases were of identical nature and different decisions, if came, could give rise to difficulties. Certain intelligence agencies were also facing the charges of allegedly picking up these missing persons. Therefore, a larger bench should be constituted to hear all these cases and to give decision.

It is pertinent to mention here that the same bench on May 15 put forth three questions to address the issue and ordered the attorney general for Pakistan and the advocate general, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, to submit replies in this regard.The three questions raised by the apex court included: “When a serving army man commits an offence under the PPC, whether an ordinary or the military court should hold its trial. Whether the ordinary courts are obliged to concede to the request of army authority, or it is its discretion to determine whether or not accept the request of army authorities for transfer of the case and what is the basis to consider/allow or decline such requests?”

The court directed its office to place the order before the chief justice during the course of the day so that he may pass an order on it.Earlier, during the course of the proceedings, Attorney General Salman Aslam Butt submitted the Ministry of Defence’s reply in a sealed enveloped and claimed confidentiality.The court, after examining the information, returned it to the AGP. The attorney general requested the court for an in-camera briefing but the court declined it.