KARACHI: Speakers at a meeting on Tuesday demanded that the Protection of Pakistan Act, 2014 be repealed immediately as it could open the way to autocracy.

The meeting, organised jointly by the Women Action Forum (WAF) and the Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Institute of Science and Technology (SZABIST), noted that the law was in conflict with various basic human rights guaranteed in the constitution.

The speakers demanded that the government strengthen the existing criminal justice system by ending delays in trials, ensuring fair, swift and scientific investigations and independent prosecution that were free from government control.

Anis Haroon, the former chairperson of the National Commission on the Status of Women, said that parliament had no power to enact any law which violated fundamental rights enshrined in Articles 8 to 28 of the Constitution.

She said that the controversial law did not apply to the Federally Administered Tribal Area (Fata) where the army operation against militants was being undertaken.

She said that the law gave the role of police to civil and military forces, which was in violation of Articles 8, 10, 10-A and 142 of the Constitution.

She said it gave powers to a grade-15 officer to open fire, which was in conflict with Articles 9 and 10 of the Constitution.

She said that the maximum detention period, currently 14 days, had been extended to 60 days and it could be used to extract confession from accused through torture, inhuman and degrading treatment which was forbidden under Articles 9 and 14 of the Constitution.

She said that the burden of proving innocence had been put on the accused and the prosecution had no burden to prove that the accused was involved in criminal activities.

She said that the accused would be tried by special courts to be set up away from the public view in a barricaded area which was against the fair trail and violation of Articles 9, 10, 13, 14 and 175 of the Constitution.

Baber Ayaz of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan said that this law would be used against the forces created by the establishment but had now turned against it. But the law could be abused/misused, so strict monitoring needed to be done on how it was being implemented, he added.

Shaherbano of the WAF said this law would be misused against political workers demanding their rights and the marginalised sections of the society would suffer the most.

She said that it would become a licence for more enforced disappearances without any accountability.

Arfana Mallah termed the law an ‘establishment protection act’.

Amar Sindhu said that the number of missing persons in Sindh had increased manifold after this law.

Muneeba Hamied of Shirkatgah claimed that the government had formulated this law owing to the dismal rate of convictions of terrorists and such powers had been given to the law enforcement agencies so that terrorists were tried and given exemplary punishments quickly.

She said that currently the investigations and prosecution in the terrorism-related cases was very poor.

Dr Riaz Shaikh, Dr Haroon Ahmed, Mehnaz Rehman, Fahim Zaman, Uzma Noorani, Shireen Khokhar, Raheema Panhwar, Kauser Khan and others also spoke.

Published in Dawn, August 13th, 2014