ISLAMABAD: Supreme Court’s Justice Jamal Khan Mandokhail has questioned whether attacks on the Parliament House and Supreme Court will be tried in anti-terrorism courts (ATCs), while an attack on the General Headquarters (GHQ) will be handled by military courts.
During a hearing on the intra-court appeal against the trial of civilians in military courts on Monday, Justice Mandokhail remarked that in his view, all three attacks should be treated equally.
A seven-member constitutional bench, led by Justice Aminuddin Khan, heard the case, where former chief justice Jawad S Khawaja’s lawyer, Khawaja Ahmad, presented his arguments.
Ahmad argued that civilians cannot be subjected to court-martial under any circumstances, saying that military courts do not meet the requirements of a fair trial.
He noted that all five SC judges — in an earlier judgment — had differing opinions on the transparency of military trials. The lawyer further questioned whether there was no distinction between a terrorist, a spy aiding an enemy, and an ordinary civilian.
Justice Hasan Azhar Rizvi advised the counsel to make a distinction in his arguments, to which Ahmad responded that he was not defending any terrorist or accused person and asserted that if civilians could be court-martialled, the 21st Constitutional Amendment would not have been necessary.
