Are Military Courts The Solution For The Menace of Militancy? The massacre of Peshawar not only united the political parties, brought civil-military relations on one page, provided tremendous opportunity to eradicate terrorism and extremism from the land of pure but also an opportunity to revisit our criminal judicial system. After all parties conference also participated by director general of ISI and chief of army staff, prime minister while addressing to the nation announced 20 points agenda regarding curbing the menace of terrorism and extremism_ in which the most important point was the establishing of the military courts for 2 years for quick justice. If we put a glance on the history of the state it will reveal that military courts are neither unconstitutional nor new as such courts were established before. True that in such circumstances the idea of the military courts is admirable for short time as it has myriad of advantages like the safety of the witnesses ,judges, prosecutions and providing quick justice. But the question arises that has our criminal judicial system failed? Why is it not delivering quick justice? What are the responsibilities of the government and what she has to do to overcome the weaknesses of criminal judicial system? Moreover what will happen after 2 years when the tenure of the military courts will complete? Establishing military courts is though a smart move by government but it will not work for longer time--as curbing terrorism and extremism need short as well as long term policies. Involving Army (that is already facing myriad of problems) in such matters, will result in extra burden on this institution. What is needed is that government should look the weaknesses of our criminal judicial system and chalk out productive policies regarding investigation and prosecution in these two years. It is the need of the hour that the policy makers should sit and rethink that why the system is not delivering quick justice.
Posted on: Sun, 11 Jan 2015 17:35:00 +0000