The Ministry of Finance has sanctioned creation of 156 posts in the FATA region to pave the way for establishing FATA Tribunal and Appellate Authority and implementing reforms in the Frontier Crimes Regulations (FCRs) in tribal region of the country, a FATA Secretariat official told Pakistan Today on Sunday.
President Asif Ali Zardari had announced on August 12 this year reforms in the draconian laws of the FCR, in vogue since the British era, whereby judicial and executive powers of the Political Agents and the District Coordination Officers (DCOs), working in the FATA region, would be separated giving the residents of the tribal region right to challenge the decision of the political agents or the DCOs in the Appellate Authority and FATA Tribunal. The FATA people had not had such rights before.
But no one could benefit from the reformed FCRs in case of grievances against the political agent or the DCO as there was neither Appellate Authority nor FATA Tribunal. The judicial system, as separate from the executive as per the reforms, could have not been implemented in the tribal region as funds for the recruitments of around 156 personnel for these courts had not been provided. Now the approval of the Finance Ministry has paved the way for implementation of the reforms to ensure that people of the tribal region would be able to have benefits from legal rights provided to them in the form of reforms in the FCRs.
When asked how long the establishment of separate judicial system in FATA would take, the official said he did not know if there was any cut-out date for that matter but it would take some time as service rules and qualifications for different categories of the officials were yet to be evolved. “We are yet to evolve educational qualifications and service rules for different categories of the employees to be recruited in the first stage then mechanism for recruitment would evolved to make the process transparent”, the official said. The official further added that 2 or three solicitors are likely to be appointed in each of the tribal agencies or Frontier Regions.
He further said the budget for the said posts in likely to be allocated from the existing budget.
When Ziaur Rehman, an official of the Ministry of States and Frontier Regions (SAFRON), was contacted, he said that he knew that the Finance Division gave approval for the recruitment of around 156 posts but the Ministry of SAFRON was yet to receive any official correspondence in this regard.
