ISLAMABAD, April 30 Former military dictators, Gen Ziaul Haq and Gen Pervez Musharraf, can be tried under the High Treason (Punishment) Act of 1973 for subverting the Constitution, according to Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Senator Babar Awan.“Gen Zia can be charged (posthumously) with sabotaging the 1973 Constitution in 1977 and Gen Musharraf twice in 1999 and 2007,” the minister, who is also acting as law minister, told reporters after an appearance in the Supreme Court on Thursday.

His statement comes in the wake of press reports that an Islamabad judge wants the ministry of law to clarify whether a former president can be brought to court on public complaints.

Mr Awan explained that Article 6 of the Constitution that dealt with high treason for undermining the Constitution was unambiguous, self-explanatory and explicit, but conceded that the act that was notified in the gazette of Pakistan on September 29, 1973, had become a “dead letter” since no civilian or military ruler had ever been tried under the law during the past 36 years in view of political exigencies.

Section 2-a of the act says that a person found guilty of having committed an act of abrogating or subverting the Constitution enforced in Pakistan at any time would be tried under the law to hand down death sentence or life imprisonment.

Thus according to this definition, Gen Ayub Khan, who had transferred the power to Gen Yahya Khan instead of the then assembly speaker, could also be tried because the high treason act had come into force on March 23, 1956.

Regarding the judicial forum, he said, cases registered under the high treason (punishment) act were tried by the Special Court Central, a forum available throughout the country established under the federal laws.