The judiciary of Pakistan has abdicated their duty to protect the citizens of the country by their blatant and open failure to handle cases of disappearances thereby providing the secret agencies of the Pakistan Army all the time they require to illegally detain people in torture camps.
The higher judiciary of Pakistan is claiming that it has obtained the release of 25 persons from the “secret agencies” out of 41 cases of disappeared persons. The fact is that they were not released by the orders of the courts but during the proceedings of the cases of habeas corpus – the secret agencies themselves released the persons. On the January 8, 2006 the court was informed by the counsels acting for the victims that it is not 25 persons who have been released but only 18 persons; a fact that the court appeared to be totally unaware of. This has once again shown that secret agencies of the army have no respect for the orders of the country’s highest courts and as such, the courts and the people are at the mercy of Army intelligence agencies. At present there are more than 5000 persons missing after arrest since start of the war on terror.
There is one interesting case of disappearance where Sindh High Court has allowed the victim’s family to make agreement for the release of the victim from the secret agency out of court. Not once in the nine months of the person’s illegal detention did the Sindh High Court order the Army to produce the person. This was the case of Mr. Muneer Ahmed Mengal, the chief executive of the Baloch Voice, a television channel based in Dubai, who was arrested on his arrival at Karachi Airport on 4 April, 2006. The court allowed the family to deal directly with the Army for the victim’s release and did not allow the victim’s family to withdraw the case.
The Asian Human Rights Commission is shocked to learn that a high court, the highest judiciary of the Sindh Province is allowing secret’ agencies to make out of the court settlements and is not attempting to punish the secret agency for not obeying or respecting the courts.
If the abductors of a citizen (who are frequently known to be elements of the Army) are allowed by the higher courts to make out of court deals for the release of the victim what is the purpose of the judicial process? What is the purpose of the courts?
In fact, the higher judiciary of Pakistan has the right to take up any case of public interest, which is called as Sou Motu, but it is difficult for the judiciary to see which cases are in fact of public interests. For example the Punjab government has allowed the citizens to celebrate the Basant Festival, an yearly festival to welcome Spring, but the chief justice of Pakistan has taken strong notice of this event and is using the power of Sou Motu, ordered the Punjab provincial government, to stop the said event and the traditional flying of the Kites. In an other case, when the Acting chief justice of Supreme court, Mr. Rana Bhagwan Das was in Karachi and when he was passing along a road he saw a ruptured sewerage line. He took up Sou Moto action and ordered the authorities of Water and Sewerage Board to immediately maintain it. Amazingly, cases of disappearances at the hands of law enforcement agencies do not raise the indignation of the judiciary of Pakistan compared to the flying of kites and sewerage lines.
Only recently is the higher judiciary taking up some cases of disappearances because the Prime Minister’s Secretariat has sent them to Court. Prior to that, courts were not even regularly hearing the cases of disappearances. However, until now the courts have no confidence to inquire from the Inter Services Intelligence (I.S.I), the Military Intelligence (M.I.) and Intelligence Bureau (I.B.), about whom the relatives of the disappeared people claim that these agencies have arrested. The victim’s families have even provided the vehicle registration numbers in which the said persons were arrested and also the names of the police officers and police stations they were taken to, but the Judges have done nothing. Some disappeared people who have been released by the secret agencies have testified in the court that they were in custody of secret agencies and were tortured. However, the courts as usual accept the stereo typed statement of the home departments that the missing persons are not in their custody.
The Asian Human Rights Commission takes serious note of the failure of the higher judiciary in connection with disappeared persons. The disappearances of people numbering in their thousands number show the state of the rule of law, the weak functioning of judicial system. The AHRC has previously commented on the cavalier attitude of the country’s judiciary with regard to the lives and welfare of the citizens it is supposed to be protecting.
