If institutions are allowed to work Pakistan can become a functioning democracy.
JI senators move bill against agencies’ powers
ISLAMABAD: Senators from the Jamaat-e-Islami on Saturday submitted a bill over missing persons, misuse of the provisions by intelligence agencies, related to preventive detention in the Constitution and detention without prior permission of the relevant court.
The bill was to be submitted by JI senators, including Prof Khurshid Ahmad, Prof Muhammad Ibrahim Khan and Aafiya Zia. The JI senators seek a reduction in the powers of the intelligence agencies regarding preventive detention as it prohibits handing over any Pakistani citizen to a foreign country without the prior permission of the high court concerned.
Articles 9 and 10 of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan are sought to be amended for this purpose.
According to the “statement of objects and reasons” attached with the bill, “Forced Disappearance” through intelligence agencies or others has taken the form of state terrorism and hundreds of Pakistanis are allegedly kept in the custody of state agencies without any opportunity of being heard at any judicial forum. Their families, meanwhile, know nothing about the whereabouts of their loved ones.
This bill proposes to reinstate the maximum duration of one month for preventive detention without being heard as it was in the original text of the Constitution of Pakistan, 1973, before the third constitutional amendment made in 1975 that had increased this period to “three months”.
Similarly, the bill seeks the detained person to be informed of the charges against him “as soon as possible, but not later than one week”. The third constitutional amendment had increased such a limit to “15 days”.
Through this bill, JI senators propose that the Review Board shall consist of sitting judges of the superior judiciary in order to ensure complete transparency and impartiality.
“In case a person is detained without affording him the opportunity of a fair trial and without informing his relatives or any of his rights is infringed, the authority making order of preventive detention and persons carrying out such illegal order shall be deemed to have committed the offence of abduction or wrongful confinement and shall be tried in the court of law,” it reads.