ISLAMABAD: Yet another petition challenging the 21st Amendment in the Constitution landed in the Supreme Court on Monday, this time by the Communist Party of Pakistan (CPP).

Earlier petitions before the Supreme Court were moved by Pakistan Justice Party Chairman Munsif Malik, highlighting that through the amendment the political government and military establishment had resurrected the doctrine of necessity, whereas Advocate Maulvi Iqbal Haider in his petition had asked the apex court to issue guidelines for the executive.

Now the CPP through its chairman Jameel Ahmad Malik contended before the court that the National Assembly and Senate while passing the 21st Amendment and the amendment in the Pakistan Army Act had not only undermined the parliament, democracy and judiciary, but had also curbed, curtailed and infringed upon the fundamental rights of citizens, fair trial and due process of law.

The petition recalled that the CPP had bad memories about military courts established during the era of Gen Zia when the party’s former general secretary Jam Saqi and other leaders namely Jamal Naqvi, Sohail Sangi, Badar Abro, Kamal Warsi, Amar Lal and Shabir Shar were arrested and tried by a military court headed by then Col Atiq Hussain on the charges of terrorism and anti-state activities.

During the Jam Saqi case, many politicians and Baloch leaders like Mir Ghous Bux Bizenjo, Benazir Bhutto, Khan Abdul Wali Khan, Tahira Mazhar Ali Khan, Mairaj Mohammad Khan, Fatehyab Ali Khan, Maulana Shah Mohammed Amroti and journalists like Minhaj Burna, Afzal Siddiqui, Shaikh Ali Mohammad, Shaikh Aziz and Abdul Ghani Dar had appeared as defence witnesses but the military court sentenced Jam Saqi to 10 years.

The military courts, the petitioner feared, would now try the workers of religious parties and their rivals in a similar fashion as was done with the CPP.

According to the petition, it is wrong to say that judiciary has failed since they handed down convictions to nearly 8,000 death-row prisoners but it was not judiciary’s fault if these sentences were not carried out and the rulers themselves did not execute the condemned prisoners.

Published in Dawn January 20th , 2015

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