Prisoners await for their rights; govt. yet to form FCR Tribunal

Prisoners await for their rights; govt. yet to form FCR Tribunal

Peshawar: (Monday, January 09, 2012) with the government yet to decide upon the formation of FCR Tribunal through introducing amendments to the Frontier Crimes Regulations, hundreds of prisoners from Federally Administered Tribal
Areas waits for their fates to be decided.

Earlier, after promulgation of the Frontier Crimes Regulations 2011, the FCR tribunal was stopped from judicial as under the law the FATA FCR would hear revision against any decision given, decree or sentence passed, or order made
by the FCR Commissioner.

Back in August, after approval and promulgation by the President, the FCR regulations 2011 were regarded as historic developments.

According to lawyers, about 1,500 Fata prisoners were awaiting the establishment of the Fata tribunal for the last five months so that they could file revision against any decision given, decree or sentence passed, or order made
by the FCR commissioner.

Fata Lawyers Forum President Muhammad Ijaz Mohmand while talking to the reporters said that since August 12, 2011 no appellate tribunal existed in Fata. He pointed out that the Fata tribunal under the Frontier Crimes Regulation (Amendment) Regulation 2011 replaced
the FCR Tribunal but the government has not yet established the Fata tribunal.

Another senior lawyer from Fata, Wali Khan Afridi said that currently Fata was without appellate tribunal and hundreds of prisoners were languishing in jails for almost six months without appeal against the decision of FCR commissioner.

He termed it worst type of human rights violation by arguing that every prisoner has the constitutional right of appeal against the FCR commissioner’s decision but due to non-existence of the Fata tribunal the Fata prisoners were
deprived of their legal right of appeal since August 12.

Both the lawyers alleged that the bureaucracy was again conspiring to take control of the Fata tribunal and appoint officers from the bureaucracy instead of tribal lawyers. They said this would be unacceptable to them.

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Posted by Fayyaz Yaseen on Jan 9 2012. Filed under Pakistan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry