High court to have control over Qazis: NWFP AG
22 April, 2009
PESHAWAR: The NWFP Advocate General, Ziaur Rahman Turangzai, on Tuesday emphatically stated that the Peshawar High Court (PHC) would have full administrative control over the Qazi courts envisaged in the Nizam-e-Adl Regulation, 2009.
“The regulation makes no mention of the Taliban’s role in the appointment of Qazis rather it is the sole prerogative of the high court to appoint a Qazi in the Malakand region,” he said. The AG was addressing a hurriedly-called news conference at his office inside the PHC building.
He was indirectly responding to the statement of banned Tehrik Nifaz Shariat-e-Muhammadi (TNSM) chief Maulana Sufi Muhammad in which he declared the Supreme Court and high courts of the country ìun-Islamicî and said that approaching these courts for getting justice was against the injunctions of Islam. He also said that judgments of the Qazi courts could not be challenged before the superior courts.
Nevertheless, the NWFP advocate general said that Qazi courts would not be the final courts and their verdicts could be challenged before the Darul Qaza and Darul-Darul Qaza. Elaborating the formation of both the appellate courts, he said that a permanent bench of the PHC would be constituted in Malakand under Clause 2 of Article 183 of the Constitution which has been named as Darul Qaza while the Supreme Court bench in the same area would be called Darul-Darul Qaza which had been formed under Clause 4 of the Article 198 of the Constitution.
Discussing the four-day deadline of the TNSM chief to establish Darul-Darul Qaza and Darul Qaza, he said: “You know the language in a public procession is altogether different from the tone used at the table of negotiations.”
He informed the media-men that the NWFP government through its peace envoy Afrasiyab Khattak and Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain was in constant contact with Sufi Muhammad to remove his apprehensions about the implementation of the regulation.
He said that presently the NWFP government was in no position to give a timeframe for the establishment of Darul-Darul Qaza, Darul Qaza and Qazi courts. But he was quick to add that the government was trying its level best to establish these courts soon.
The official hoped that the courts established under the new regulation would help ensure dispensation of quick justice because the Qazi courts would be bound to dispose of criminal cases within four-month time while maximum time to decide civil cases is fixed as six months.
Rejecting objections of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement and civil society organisations over the regulation, he said there was nothing new in the present regulation which the previous governments promised to the people of Malakand in separate regulations implemented in 1994 and 1999. “It’s indeed the continuation of previous regulations of 1994 and 1999.”
It merits to mention here that the recently promulgated regulation has provided that besides Darul-Darul Qaza (final appellate court) and Darul Qaza (appellate court) there will be the courts of Zilla Qazi, Izafi Zilla Qazi, Aa’la Ilaqa Qazi, Ilaqa Qazi and executive magistrate in the Malakand Division and Kohistan district.
These courts would be established in seven districts of Malakand division, including Swat, Buner, Shangla, Dir Upper, Dir Lower, Malakand and Chitral and in Kohistan district. However, the appellate courts would not be established in all the districts of Pata.
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