- Apex court adjourns hearing of case till after winter vacations.
- SC hinted at hearing case regarding amendment soon.
- Bench head says they want to decide special courts case soon.
ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court’s constitutional bench on Friday gave the military courts conditional permission to announce verdicts in cases against 85 suspects.
In its order on the hearing of the appeals against civilians’ military trial, the constitutional bench said judgements of military courts would be conditional to the top court verdict on the cases pending before it.
“The suspects eligible for clemency should be granted it and released, while those who cannot be released should be transferred to prisons after being sentenced,” the constitutional bench said.
The seven-member constitutional bench, led by Justice Aminuddin Khan, heard the appeals. The bench also included Justice Jamal Khan Mandokhail, Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar, Justice Syed Hasan Azhar Rizvi, Justice Naeem Akhtar Afghan, Justice Musarrat Hilali and Justice Shahid Bilal Hassan.
Announcing a short verdict on permission for the military courts to announce verdicts in the cases, the SC has adjourned hearing of the case till after the winter vacations.
The apex court also hinted at hearing the case pertaining to 26th Constitutional Amendment in the second week of January.
Justice Aminuddin said they wanted to announce verdict about special courts soon.
“The pleas challenging 26th Constitutional Amendment will be heard after this case. We want to fix the petitions against the amendment in the second week of January [next year],” he said.
The judge said they had several cases including the 26th Constitutional Amendment in the pipeline.
Hopefully, he said, the matter of civilians’ trial in military courts would be disposed of in January.
Justice Aminuddin also asked Ministry of Defence lawyer Khawaja Haris how much time he would take to complete his arguments. To which, he responded it would take some more time to complete the arguments.
During the hearing, Justice Hilali remarked that the focus of their discussion was not fundamental human rights at the moment rather it was civilians and non-civilians.
Meanwhile, Mandokhail questioned Haris if he did not have faith in civilian courts. He wanted to be satisfied [with the arguments] as it was a serious matter, he added.
Justice Mandokhail on Thursday questioned the legitimacy of trying civilians under the armed forces’ disciplinary framework, during the hearing of intra-court appeals against military courts’ decisions.
The top court, in its unanimous verdict by a five-member bench, on October 23 last year declared civilians’ trials in military courts null and void after it admitted the petitions challenging the trial of civilians involved in the May 9 riots.
However, on December 13, 2023, a six-member bench of the apex court — with Justice Hilali differing with the majority — suspended its October 23 order.
The PTI called the Supreme Court’s 5-1 decision to suspend its ruling of nullifying military trials of civilians a “judicial coup”.
The more than 100 civilians facing military trials were those who had allegedly ransacked military installations across the nation on May 9, following PTI founder Imran Khan’s arrest in a graft case.
