LAHORE – Joint Action Committee (JAC) and Women Action Forum (WAF) on Wednesday demanded that all parallel judicial systems especially the Federal Shariat Court (FSC) be abolished immediately.
JAC demanded the abolishment in response to the FSC’s verdict on December 22, which declared four clauses (11, 25, 28 and 29) of the Women Protection Act (WPA) 2006 as unconstitutional.
JAC activists said that while the clauses may appear to make no substantive difference to the law, the implications will be far reaching, as by striking down sections 11 and 28, the verdict reintroduces the over-riding effect of zina and qazaf ordinances, which the WPA had removed.
They said it also confuses the issue of separation of rape from zina that the WPA had established. The verdict of the FSC, JAC workers said, certainly cause confusion in the administration of criminal justice.
The FSC’s verdict was both political and anti-women, said the activists. In order to expand its own ‘dwindling’ powers and encroach upon the jurisdiction of the higher Judiciary as well as the powers of the parliament, the FSC has used WPA as the means to pursue its objectives, they claimed.
Women’s rights’ workers said that the preoccupation of the FSC was with procedural requirement of the WPA or other legislative instrument. This had little or no nexus with the scope of the court, whose jurisdiction was only to determine whether a law or the provisions of a law is repugnant to Islam.
In a statement issued on Wednesday, they said, this was unacceptable and contrary to the vision of Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah.
JAC and WAF urged the federal government and all four provincial governments, who are respondents to this petition, to challenge the verdict and ensure that the administration of justice in the country does not deteriorate further and result in intensifying problems of the public in general and women in particular. South Asia Partnership, Shirkatgah, Aurat Foundation, AGHS, Kashf foundation and Labour Resource Center also participated in the seminar.
