|
'Malakand people prefer existing laws'
Lawyers from Swat district said on Monday that majority of the people of Malakand division wanted their cases decided under the existing laws of the country and not under the Shariah law as being demanded by the Swat Taliban. The NWFP government has finalised the draft Shari Nizam-e-Adl Regulations 2008 for its implementation in Malakand which the provincial governor has approved and sent to federal government for approval of the president. "Eighty per cent people of Malakand are in favour of the present Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) and Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) law," Yousaf Khan Yousafzai, a Peshawar High Court (PHC) lawyer from Swat district, told Daily Times. "We (Swat lawyers) have witnessed hundreds of cases in which parties from Malakand division did not want to get their cases decided under Shariah law and declined Qazi courts offer for the same," he said, adding that the problem of the people of Malakand was delay in disposal of their cases and nothing else. Opposing NWFP government's proposed Shari Nizam-e-Adl Regulations 2008, he said that it will cause judicial complications as one party in a case might demand decision under Pakistani law and the other might want it under Shariah law.
Shaukat Khan, a lawyer from Malakand division, said that it was practically impossible for a judge to decide a criminal case in four months and a civil-nature case in six months (the time frame mentioned in the proposed Shariah law). "If deciding a case in such a limited period is possible, then why thousands of cases have been pending for the last 10 to 15 years in the country courts?" he said. He said that under Islamic law, either the accused should plead guilty or at least two Muslim adult male witnesses should be called as eyewitnesses. He said the witnesses should be truthful people and should have abstained from major sins. "In this era, such witnesses are difficult to find," he said. Posted by: Fred 2008-10-14 |
|
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=252629 |