Serving general issued contempt of court notice

Society Pakistan & World Affairs
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This is getting interesting…judges vs the generals.

Missing persons case: IG FC issued contempt of court notice - DAWN.COM

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court on Thursday served a contempt of court notice to the inspector general of the Frontier Corps (FC) for not complying with its order in a case relating to the ‘missing persons’ of Balochistan.

This is the first time that a serving general has been issued a contempt of court notice. The court had previously warned IG FC Maj-Gen Ijaz Shahid that he may face contempt charges if he fails to appear before it on Dec 5.

During proceedings today, Attorney General Irfan Qadir appeared in court as counsel for Maj-Gen Shahid. However, the court said that the IG FC would not be given any leverage as long as he refuses to appear in court himself.

Heading the three-judge bench, Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry said that the IG FC should physically appear in court and explain his reasons for not obeying the orders of the court.

The chief justice directed the secretary interior to issue a notice to Maj-Gen Shahid and ensure his presence in court.

In a parrallel case relating to disappearance of one Yasin Shah and similar enforced disappearances, the federal government was yet again unable to present the remaining missing persons. Defence Minister Khwaja Asif pleaded the three-judge bench of the apex court for further time to produce the victims. However, the court rejected the plea.

The Supreme Court had given the government a final deadline of Thursday to produce the 33 missing persons.

The chief justice remarked that the court should summon somebody else if the defence minister was helpless.

Asif told the bench that the whereabouts of five to seven missings persons had been ascertained, but he was unable to reveal that information in public and requested an in-camera hearing.

Responding to the request, the chief justice asked the defence minister to first produce the 30 missing persons and then an in-camera briefing would be held in the judge’s chamber.

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Re: Serving general issued contempt of court notice

rangbazi !

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Re: Serving general issued contempt of court notice

Agreed.

http://www.dawn.com/news/1060783/chief-justice-has-been-inconsistent-says-icj

Chief justice has been inconsistent, says ICJ

ISLAMABAD, Dec 5: The chief justice of Pakistan has strengthened human rights but his inconsistent choice of cases has left the Supreme Court vulnerable to accusations of partisan intervention, a global group of 60 eminent judges and lawyers said on Thursday.

Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry — due to step down on Dec 12 — spearheaded a legal movement that forced out a dictator and established the independence of the judiciary for the first time in Pakistan’s history.

But without further reforms, the justice system will continue to destabilise the country, the Geneva-based International Commission of Jurists warned in a report. “The Court has often garnered public acclaim for demanding government accountability,” the body said. But many felt “concerns that the Court has sometimes exercised its original jurisdiction in a political and partisan manner”.

Justice Chaudhry helped restore some hope in the courts, the report said, by intervening in individual cases, such as one where police did not intervene in a lynching and another where paramilitary forces were filmed executing a civilian.

“Officials who were responsible for the killing and who would have otherwise escaped accountability were investigated and brought to justice,” the Commission said.

Such interventions have led to an explosion in the number of rights cases submitted to the court. In 2011, it received more than 150,000 petitions, compared to just 450 in 2004.

Sometimes important cases were ignored and some seemingly frivolous ones taken up, the Commission said. “In some cases, the Supreme Court has acted swiftly…facilitating victims’ right to remedy and reparation. In other instances, however, the Court has not responded to urgent human rights issues.”—Reuters

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Everyone is just waiting for the CJ to retire.

The incoming CJ said the other day that Justice Iftikhar is his role model …

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drama

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Re: Serving general issued contempt of court notice

^^^ After Gen. got contempt notice “missing persons” showed up in the court.

Supreme Court identifies six ?missing persons? - DAWN.COM

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court of Pakistan on Saturday identified six ‘missing persons’ who had relatives complaining about their ‘forced disappearance’ saying the country’s powerful army took them into custody from a detention centre.

The government earlier produced 14 ‘missing persons’ before Justice Amir Hani Muslim, a member of the three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry which had taken up a case relating to a missing man named Yasin Shah.

The missing persons were brought to the premises of the apex court in two vehicles with their faces covered. Attorney General Muneer A. Malik was also present in the court’s premises.

Relatives of the missing people launched a legal bid to force the military to produce 35 people who they alleged are being held in ‘unofficial’ military detention at a string of secret investigation centres.

The apex court took up the case and ordered the defence ministry to produce these “missing persons.”

Acting upon the court’s advice, the authorities presented some of the detainees in the court Saturday during an “in camera” session.

Of those, six were identified as missing people who had relatives complaining about their disappearance.

“Six missing persons, who were presented in the court today, have been identified,” Muneer A. Malik, the Attorney General for Pakistan, told AFP.

The court did not allow media to witness the proceedings.

Ataullah, the superintendent of the internment centre in Malakand, was also been summoned by the court with all records pertaining to the detentions.

Speaking after the proceedings an official of the defence ministry said they had obeyed the court’s order to present the missing persons.

“We presented these people to obey the court orders and will present more people before the court on Monday or Tuesday to further act on the court directives,” Arif Nazir, a senior official of defence ministry, told AFP.

Earlier on Friday, Defence Minister Khawaja Asif did not disclose the names of the 14 but said that seven of them were living a free life and could be produced whenever the court so desired. Two are internees and information about five others are unsubstantiated but may be confirmed in a day or two, the minister had told the bench during yesterday’s hearing.

The bench, unsatisfied with the defence minister’s explanation, had then ordered the production of the 14 before Justice Amir Hani Muslim at 10.30am on Saturday. Attorney General Malik was also ordered as required to ascertain the status of the persons.

The apex court had also obligated the authorities to ensure the presence of one or two relatives of these persons who could identify them and, if needed, Justice Muslim and the attorney general may ask questions to ascertain facts and their status.

The court had also ordered that relatives of two of the internees — Sardar Ali and Nadir Khan who had died on Dec 29 last year and July 1 this year, respectively, in the Lakki Marwat internment centre inside the Malakand garrison — be produced before Justice Muslim to confirm if they had agreed to receive the bodies without autopsy.

Defence of Human Rights (DHR), an organisation formed by the relatives of the missing persons, says that around 2,000 people have disappeared from across the country.

Last month, a group of over two dozen people – mostly women – marched 700 kilometres (430 miles) from Quetta, the capital of the southwestern Balochistan province, to the southern port city of Karachi to register their protest over disappearance of their relatives.

Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, who retires on December 12, has actively persued Pakistan’s military and intelligence agencies, which are often seen as untouchable, demanding they explain the fate of missing persons believed to have disappeared into their custody.

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There are way more than six missing persons. Where are the others?

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Why can't the missing persons be charged in military courts if they are enemy combatants? BLA, BRA has foreign links if that is the case here.

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^^^^^

It is called 'ghunda gardi' of people who has absolute power over Paki slaves.