PESHAWAR, March 18: The NWFP government has separated the Directorate of Prosecution from the provincial law department and attached it to the Department for Home and Tribal Affairs.

A notification to this effect was issued by the NWFP chief secretary Ijaz Qureshi on Wednesday. The notification has put an end to a row between the two departments as both were interested in supervising the prosecution services in the province.

According to the notification, for civil cases the government pleaders should continue to work under the supervision of the law department. The government will separately make necessary amendments in the NWFP Government Rules of Business 1985 so that the prosecution services could function as an attached department of the home department.

The notification was issued by the government in accordance with the decision taken by a cabinet committee constituted for putting forward recommendations about the Police Order 2002 and reforms in the prosecution services, in line with the Asian Development Bank-funded Access to Justice Programme.

Some confusion still persists about the government pleaders in civil cases. By virtue of the posts of public prosecutors, they are also government pleaders and they have to defend the government in civil cases.

Its not known whether the government will now hire new pleaders for civil cases or the same public prosecutors will function under the law department as far as civil cases are concerned.

For establishing a uniform system of prosecution service in all the four provinces, the federal government had circulated among the four provinces, a draft of a proposed law called the Prosecution Service (Creation, functions and powers) Ordinance in 2002.

As the prosecution service is a provincial subject, therefore the four provincial governments were asked to decide whether to enact the draft law in its original shape or to make changes in it.

Under the proposed ordinance, the provincial government will establish a service to be called as the prosecution service. The government would appoint a prosecutor general to head the service.

The prosecutor general will be assisted by such number of public prosecutors as the government may determine from time to time. Through the proposed ordinance wide-ranging powers will be assigned to the prosecutor general, district prosecutor and public prosecutors.