PESHAWAR: Uncertainty looms over the legal status of a three-member Fata tribunal, the final judicial forum under the repealed Frontier Crimes Regulation, as the government has failed to provide protection to it in the recently-promulgated Fata Interim Governance Regulation, 2018.

An official at the Fata tribunal told Dawn that he had no idea about the current legal status of the tribunal, which had been awaiting directives from the relevant quarters about its functioning.

Interestingly, the tenure of the tribunal’s members ended on May 22 and the very next day, a notification was issued by the Fata Secretariat saying the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa governor has granted extension in the service period of the existing management of the tribunal for six months.

There’s no mention of tribunal in interim governance regulation

The tribunal has Sang-i-Marjan Khan as chairman and Hussainzada Khan and Mohammad Atif Nazir as members.

Through the Fata Interim Governance Regulation, 2018, which was promulgated by the country’s president and was notified on May 28, the FCR 1901 was repealed.

The interim regulation provides a legal framework about how to conduct proceedings in civil and criminal cases.

Through Section 55A of the FCR, the Fata tribunal, which is the third and last judicial forum, was introduced having powers of revision against the decisions of the appellate authority, which was that of commissioner FCR.

A revision petition has to be filed within 90 days of the decision by the appellate authority.

For the purpose of the interim regulation, the political agent has to be termed as deputy commissioner, additional political agent as additional deputy commissioner and assistant political agent as assistant commissioner.

Just like FCR the new regulation provides that the appeal against the order made by the deputy commissioner (political agent) or the judge shall lie to the commissioner or additional commissioner authorised by the governor.

However, unlike FCR where the third judicial forum was that of Fata tribunal, the present regulation provides that an appeal against the order of the appellate authority may be filed before the high court.

A legal expert said the interim regulation was made so hastily that it didn’t have any mention of the Fata tribunal.

He said no mechanism was provided that if the tribunal ceased to exist after the repealing of the FCR, what would be the fate of large number of cases pending before it.

An official at the tribunal said that they were creation of the FCR and after its repeal legally speaking the tribunal should also cease to function. However, at the same time he added that the present management of the tribunal has been given six months extension and they have now presumed that these six months might be given to us for disposing of the pending cases.

Around 40 cases were fixed for hearing before the tribunal on Wednesday. Almost the same number of cases were fixed on Thursday.

An expert said that the moment Article 247 of the Constitution was omitted from the Constitution the jurisdiction of the superior courts has now been applicable to Fata, which has now been merged with KP. Previously, under Article 247 neither the Supreme Court nor the high court could exercise any jurisdiction in relation to a tribal area unless the Parliament by law provided.

DR SHAKIL CASE ADJOURNED: The tribunal on Thursday adjourned to Aug 2 without progress the hearing into a petition of Dr Shakil Afridi challenging the upholding of his conviction by the appellate forum of commissioner FCR for having links with banned militant outfits.

Advocate Qamar Nadeem Afridi, representing Dr Shakil, told Dawn that no noteworthy proceedings took place in the case.

On Mar 15, 2014, the FCR commissioner had upheld the conviction of Dr Shakil for being linked to a banned militant organisation of Bara tehsil in Khyber Agency but reduced his original prison term slapped by the assistant political agent’s court from 33 years to 23 years and that of the Rs320,000-Rs220,000 fine.

Through the present revision petition Dr Shakil has challenged the decision of commissioner.

The tribunal also adjourned hearing of a petition filed by the administration of Khyber Agency against the reduction of sentence of Dr Shakil by the commissioner.

Dr Shakil was taken into custody in May 2011by intelligence agencies on suspicion of helping the American CIA through a fake vaccination campaign trace Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad.

Published in Dawn, June 1st, 2018