ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court of Pakistan has dismissed the judicial reviews filed by 16 different terrorists against military court judgments. The military court awarded the 16 petitioners death sentences after finding them guilty of carrying out different terroractivities in the country including the brutal carnage at Army Public School in December 2014, the Bannu Jail Break and other terrorism-related incidents. The judicial reviews filed by terrorists were on three basic law-grounds including coram non judice (not before the judge), malafide (Malice in law) and denial of fair trial envisaged under article 10-A of the Constitution.
“It now stands clarified that neither the High Court nor this Court can sit in appeal over the findings of the FGCM or undertake an exercise of analysing the evidence produced before it or dwell into the “merits” of the case,” now the top court observed in its ruling. A larger bench of the top court, headed by Chief Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali and comprising Justice Amir Hani Muslim, Justice Sheikh Azmat Saeed, Justice Manzoor Ahmed Malik and Justice Faisal Arab heard the cases of 16 judicial reviews.
The 16 terrorist who had filed their pleas through their relatives included Bacha Laiq, Anwar Bibi, Ali ur Rehman, Nek Maro, Said Zaman Khan, Sakhi Muhammad, Sher Alam, Mashooqa Bibi, Ajab Gul, Khan Afsar , Javed Iqbal Ghauri, Mohibullah, Fazal Ghafar, Zarba Khela, Aqsan Mehboob, and Hafiz Muhammad Sadiq.
Senior lawyers of the Supreme Court including Asma Jehangir, Abdul Latif Afridi, Khalid Anwar Afridi, Naseemullah Khan, Ahmed Nawaz Chaudhry, Malik Muhammad Akram, Salahuddin Mengal and Ahmed Raza Kasuri had represented the family members of convicts. Bacha Laiqa, mother of Haider Ali, had contended that her son was a minor at the time of the alleged crime; therefore he could not be awarded death sentence under juvenile justice. This had also invited the attention of international community.
However, the top court noted that the entry of his Birth Certificate was inserted in the record after the Writ Petition had been filed before the Peshawar High Court and many decades after the alleged birth of the Convict Haider Ali. “The other documents were private documents, having no evidentiary significance. We are not persuaded to interfere in the said findings,” the top court observed.
A 182 paged judgment authored by Justice Sheikh Azmat Saeed ruled that it is settled law that while exercising the power of Judicial Review in matters of this nature, neither the learned High Court nor this Court could sit in appeal over the conclusion drawn by the FGCM or analyze the evidence produced before it. The top court observed that a perusal of the record of the FGCM reveals that in order to ensure a fair trial and to protect the rights of the Convict, the relevant Rules were complied with. The Summary of evidence had been taken and was laid before the FGCM, as is apparent from the record of the proceedings thereof.
The top court further observed that at no point of time during the course of the trial by the FGCM or the pendency of the proceedings before the High Court were any allegations of specific mala fides of fact made against the Members of the FGCM. It said that the convicts were subject to the Pakistan Army Act 1952 as amended by the Pakistan Army (Amendment) Act, 2015 and liable to be tried and the offence was liable to be tried by the FGCM. Hence, the proceedings are not without jurisdiction.
The court declared that this was not a case of ‘no evidence’ or ‘insufficient evidence’ and the amendment in the constitution and PAA were in view of particular circumstance. The judgment noted the convicts were members of religiously motivated terrorist organisations and were involved in attacking the armed forces and the law enforcement agencies and causing death of civilians, several soldiers and officials.