Military courts’ tenure

The second two years’ tenure of Military Courts has ended and the hearing of under trial terrorism related cases has come to standstill. These courts had been set up under National Action Plan in 2015 after the genocide of 140 plus students in Army Public School, Peshawar on 16th December 2014. A constitutional amendment was passed by the parliament with sunset clause of two years. After the expiry of mandated period further extension of two years’ tenure was given by the previous government which expired on Sunday.

The present government has decided to give a third time extension for two years to military courts for which constitutional amendments will be required to be passed with two-third majority. In view of the razor thin majority of PTI led ruling coalition; the government needs the support of opposition parties to pass the necessary legislation from the parliament which seems pretty difficult because of tensed relation between the government and opposition. It is pertinent to mention that in August 2015, the Supreme Court in a majority verdict had provided a legal cover to the establishment military courts subject to judicial review of the judgments passed by these courts. In 2016, a larger bench of the Supreme Court endorsed the trial of the militants conducted by military courts.

The war on terror still continues and the previous government, which enjoyed two-third majority in the lower house backed by the support of main opposition People’s Party, a majority party in Senate, did not reform the criminal justice system and streamlining the inland security laws by making the necessary legislations. Since the launch of Operation Zarb-e-Azb, the interior ministry had referred 717 cases of terrorism to the military courts. The Defense Minister Pervaiz Khattak had informed the National Assembly in November last year that decisions on 185 terrorism related cases had to be taken by military courts before March this year. In the past few months terrorist attacks have occurred in the frontline provinces of Khyber Pukhtunkhwa and Baluchistan and in the capital city of Sindh Karachi. The prevailing situation justifies the extension in tenure of military courts.