ISLAMABAD: Although the government is silent over the fate of the controversial Protection of Pakistan Act (PoPA) that lapsed in July, its legal aides say that instead of giving the law a new lease of life, a presidential ordinance may be issued to transfer PoPA cases to antiterrorism courts (ATCs).

Cases registered under the lapsed law include the assassination of former Punjab home minister Shuja Khanzada, who was killed in a suicide attack in his village in Attock on August 16 last year.

His murder was registered under PoPA and the case has been pending for adjudication, along with other PoPA cases, in a Rawalpindi court.

The government’s top legal advisers are of the view that to resume the stalled trial of suspects booked under PoPA, the government should consider transferring the cases to the ATCs.

According to an adviser to the government, the presidential ordinance will give legal cover to the transfer of PoPA cases to the courts.


Law officers say presidential ordinance will be promulgated to give the move legal cover


After the ordinance was promulgated, he said, the accused being tried under sections of PoPA would be charged under the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA) 1997, which would enable ATCs to restart the trial.

Since PoPA did not clarify what the fate of pending cases would be after its expiry, their status is currently unclear.

The federal government had established only five courts under PoPA while giving 20 ATCs in different parts of the country additional responsibility of handling PoPA cases, on top of their existing workload.

PoPA was promulgated in July 2014 with a sunset clause of two years, which expired on July 15 this year. Special courts set up under the law had already been non-functional for several months due to a lack of staff and other facilities.

The law ministry had forwarded a summary to the prime minister for the law’s revival a couple of months before it lapsed, but the prime minister did not have time to look at it as he was undergoing cardiac treatment in the UK at that time.

On July 14, the prime minister constituted a four-member team, comprising Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, Law Minister Zahid Hamid and special assistants Barrister Zafarullah Khan and Khawaja Zaheer, to rally opposition’s support for PoPA’s revival.

The committee was supposed to hold a series of meetings with leaders of opposition parties, but it failed to do so.

A top law officer of the federal government told Dawn that the ATA 1997 covered some of the scheduled offences that fell under PoPA, including attacks on religious or ethnic minorities, murder, kidnapping, sabotage of public buildings and use of firearms.

He said that those who committed such acts could be tried under the ATA.

He claimed that since the major offences under PoPA were similar to those under the ATA, and that some ATCs were already handling PoPA cases, it had been decided to transfer all pending PoPA cases to ATCs.

Criminal law expert Ilyas Siddiqui, who was earlier of the view that after its expiry, PoPA cases could not be tried in any other court, said that in case the government issued an ordinance in this regard, cases registered under the expired law could be transferred to the ATCs.

But since it would be a case of a presidential ordinance superseding an act of parliament, its legal position would be weak and someone might challenge it in the superior courts, he said.

Published in Dawn, August 29th, 2016

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