June 23, 2002	Sunday	Rabi-us-Sani 11, 1423

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GILGIT, June 22: The people of Northern Areas have appealed to the chief justice of Pakistan to fix a date for hearing the two impending petitions filed in the Supreme Court, seeking the provision of basic human rights and constitutional status to the region.

One of the constitutional petitions was filed by Dr Ghulam Abbas and Al-Jihad Trust.

The petitioners said the apex court in its judgment on May 28, 1999, had declared that the people of Northern Areas (NAs) should be given all the fundamental rights that had been granted to the people of the four provinces under the country’s constitution.

The SC ruled that the NAs people were entitled to participate in the governance of their region and to have an independent judiciary to enforce, inter alia, the fundamental rights in the light of articles 2A and 17 of the constitution.

However, the apex court’s judgment could not be implemented in letter and spirit in the past three years.

Dr Abbas filed on June 4, 2000, a writ petition in the court under article 184(3) of the constitution, seeking relief against the establishment of the institutions of the Northern Areas Legislative Council and the Court of Appeals for Northern Areas after the Supreme Court verdict.

He also sought relief for the abolition of connotation of NAs and for getting identity to the citizens in its true historical and geographical perspectives.

The petitioner prayed to the court to give the people the right to appeal in the Supreme Court and declare the chief court of the region a full-fledged high court instead of establishing a separate court of appeal.

Legal experts are of the view that as the petition was sub judice, the people were unable to exercise their fundamental rights, granted to them in the light the apex court’s verdict. Another identical petition, filed in the SC by the Al-Jihad Trust on May 31, 2000, is also in pending.