RAWALPINDI: In a move to restore the old magistracy system in all the four provinces, the National Assembly Standing Committee on Law and Justice approved the 29th constitutional amendment bill introduced by the government on Wednesday.

The federal government introduced the bill in parliament on the recommendations of the Council of Common Interests (CCI).

It has been an old demand of the bureaucracy in Punjab to get the old magistracy system restored saying it was necessary to handle local issues. After the passage of the bill by parliament, the police will come under the control of the district administration.

A senior district administration officer told Dawn that commissioners and deputy commissioners were facing problems in handling law and order issues as they did not enjoy magisterial powers.

After law’s passage, district administration officers will enjoy magisterial powers

He said under the executive magistracy system the deputy commissioner also used to be the district magistrate and took on-the-spot decisions on different issues such as price hike and public protests etc.

“Mostly, people easily come to the negotiation table in the presence of civilian officers instead of those in uniform,” he claimed.

Another senior officer said the provincial government wanted to resolve all issues such as encroachments, law and order and protests etc., but the district administration officers could not achieve the objective as they had no magisterial powers.

He said it had been an old demand of district officers that magisterial powers should be given to the deputy and assistant commissioners which they enjoyed before the local government system introduced by former military ruler Pervez Musharraf.

Before 2001, he said, the deputy commissioner used to be the district magistrate while the assistant commissioner acted as the subdivisional magistrate followed by the extra assistant commissioners.

The district magistrates had powers to hear criminal cases except those in which death sentence or life imprisonment were given. Each magistrate looked after two police stations, he added.

However, during the tenure of Gen Musharraf, these powers were distributed among the police, judiciary and the executive.

When the executive powers were taken away from magistrates, there was no authority to check unbridled price hikes and profiteering or to impose penalties on the violators, he added.

When contacted, PML-N MNA retired Justice Iftikhar Ahmad Cheema, who is a member of the National Assembly Standing Committee on Law and Justice, told Dawn that the government had introduced the bill which was passed by the committee on Wednesday.

He said the bill would be tabled before the parliament soon. “It is necessary to make an amendment to the Constitution. After the amendment, provinces will implement the law to restore the executive magistracy system in their respective jurisdictions,” he said.

Published in Dawn, October 27th, 2017