ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court decided on Wednesday to club all appeals instituted against convictions awarded by military courts for hearing on March 3, and ordered that suspension of executions granted earlier would continue till the outcome of pending petitions.

A five-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali had taken up a number of cases but when rights activist Asma Jahangir pointed out that two of the cases she was pleading were not on the roster, the court decided to hear all the cases challenging military courts’ verdicts together.

Ms Jahangir, however, regretted that no report as ordered by the court on the last hearing had been submitted by the government and that she had no access to her clients as a result of which the trial before military courts appeared to be one-sided.

Attorney General Salman Aslam Butt said relevant record of the trial court was available with him, but the apex court should consider perusing it in camera.

Justice Mian Saqib Nisar asked Ms Jahangir to consider examining the laws relating to the claim of privilege as being sought by the government, adding that if the court decided the issue in favour of the accused then the record would always be open for examination by their counsel.

On Dec 7 last year, a smaller bench had referred the matter of two convicts who were awarded capital punishment to the larger bench to determine whether the right to a fair trial was denied to them while awarding death sentence. The court had suspended the execution of Haider Ali and Qari Zahir Gul with a direction to submit the trial record to it.

Ms Jahangir had pleaded that the right to the fair trial as guaranteed by Article 10A of the Constitution had been denied to the two convicts by neither handing over the copies of military court judgments nor affording the opportunity of any counsel to defend themselves.

The petitioners had challenged the Oct 15 rejection of their pleas by the Peshawar High Court against the death sentence handed down by the military court for non-unavailability of convicts’ case record.

Haider Ali, who was only 14 years old when arrested on Sept 21, 2009, had pleaded that awarding of the sentence and non-provision of the case record was sheer violation of Article 4 (right of individuals to be dealt with in accordance with law) and Article 10A (right to fair trial).

Similarly, Qari Zahir Gul, through his mother Anwar Bibi, had contended that security forces had taken him into custody in April 2011 from the Jalozai camp where he was an internally displaced person and a prayer leader. Later he was taken to an internment centre in Khar area of Bajaur Agency but his trial commenced after four years by a military court.

He pleaded that the military authorities did not provide him any document connecting him with the commission of the crime and that he was also denied permission to engage a counsel.

The appeal argued that PHC’s judgment was not in accordance with the directions and observations made by the SC in its judgment on 18th and 21st constitutional amendments case.

Similarly, a seperate bench had referred to the larger bench the cases of four convicts, two of them awarded death sentence by military courts for their involvement in the Peshawar’s Army Public School carnage of Dec 16, 2014.

The court had suspended their executions while taking up appeals against the PHC verdict of rejecting their plea on different dates moved by Taj Mohammad alias Rizwan and Ali Rehman, both acted as facilitators of the APS terrorism as well as the petitions moved by Mohammad Imran who was involved in the 2014 Bajaur checkpost attack and Qari Zubair Mohammad for his involvement in the 2009 Nowshera cantonment mosque bomb blast.

Published in Dawn, February 25th, 2016