01 March 2005	Tuesday	19 Muharram 1426

LAHORE, Feb 28: The Ministry of Law, Justice and Human Rights is set to move a bill in the National Assembly to make certain provisions of the Hudood Ordinances, 1979, non-cognizable.

The objective is to make adultery and trading of persons non-cognizable offence, it is learnt.

The proposed amendment to the law, legal experts understand, will take away much of the biting force of the controversial laws. For this section 10(2) of the ordinance is being changed to effectively divest the police of the powers to take cognizance of concerned offences. The laws have been exceedingly misused by the police for over 25 years now.

The amendments, if passed by the parliament will mean that the police will have no powers to register a case, initiate investigation or arrest a person charged under this section of the Hudood laws. Any police action would have to follow permission by the area magistrate, according to legal experts.

The bill also proposes to make the offences of selling and buying of persons (mainly women), as provided by sections 13 and 14 of the ordinances respectively, non-cognizable offences.

The police have powers under section 154 of the Criminal Procedure Code to register a case, make arrest and investigate charges in cognizable offences. Section 155 of the CrPC curtails such powers. It requires the police to seek area magistrate's opinion whether a subsequent legal action is necessary.

If the magistrate agrees to the police opinion, he or she will issue a written permission to the police department to register an FIR, initiate investigation and complete challan to be sent to the court for trial.

Section 10 of the Hudood laws relates to adultery by consent. Its sub-section 2 carries a punishment of up to 10 years with 30 stripes. Legal experts say that the Hudood Ordinances have been misused by the police to violate the sanctity of privacy. Police have been unauthorizedly barging into homes using the excuse that residents are running brothels.

Civil society organizations have long been opposing the authority of the police in taking cognizance of such offences. These powers, they say, have been grossly misused to harass weaker sections of society, forcing victims to compromise with influential offenders, or allowing the latter to settle personal scores with impunity.

The law has also been used by parents to deter their daughters from marrying of their own free will. The Lahore High Court has settled a number of such cases in the recent past, allowing newly wed couples to lead a married life on grounds that they have a constitutional right to do so.

Many superior courts have taken note of undue interference by the police in domestic life and often held that the police have transgressed their authority by implicating law-abiding citizens in Hudood cases.