Pakistan CABINET APPROVES ANTI-TERRORISM (AMENDMENT) BILL

The federal cabinet on Wednesday considered and accorded approval to the Anti-Terrorism (Amendment) Bill, 2012, concerning terrorism financing and also considered “Investigation for Fair Trial Bill, 2012 besides approving draft Electricity (Amendment) Bill 2012 and Criminal Law (Amendment) Bill. The Anti-Terrorism (Amendment Bill, 2012, provides for addressing shortcomings relating to the terrorism financing provisions in the Anti-terrorism Act, 1997. In particular, the Bill strengthens the provisions creating the offence of terrorism financing; covering all aspects of the offence in the light of international standards and provides for more effective measures for law enforcement agencies to investigate the offence. The provisions on freezing, seizing and forfeiture of property involved in the terrorism financing offence have been strengthened to ensure that the funding of the terrorism financing offence is detected and seized after due process of law. The Cabinet also considered the “Investigation for Fair Trial Bill, 2012″ and gave its approval with certain amendments. The bill provides for investigation for collection of evidence by means of modern techniques and devices to prevent and effectively deal with scheduled offence and to regulate the powers of the law enforcement and intelligence agencies and to prevent law enforcement and intelligence agencies from using their powers arbitrarily. It was felt necessary to regulate the said powers and provide for their permissible and fair uses in accordance with law and under proper executive and judicial oversight keeping in view Article 10A of the Constitution. It will also provide for admissibility and use of the material collected during investigation under the present law in judicial proceedings and all other legal proceedings or processes to ensure fair trial. The Cabinet also approved a bill on “Offenses and Penalties relating to Electricity Amendments in the PPC, CrPC and Electricity Act 1910.” It may be mentioned that the Ministry of Water & Power is faced with the situation whereby the recoveries affected by the distribution companies from the consumers are insufficient and inadequate to meet the cost of generated electricity. As a result, the Government of Pakistan has to provide subsidy especially to those distribution companies where leakages, pilferage and theft are rampant. Primarily, this phenomenon emanates from fragile legal and enforcement structure. The Criminal Law (Amendment) Bill 2012 enumerates offence of dishonest abstraction, illegal interference or tampering with transmission and distribution power systems with penalty of rigorous imprisonment which may extend to three years and fine which may extend to ten million rupees for transmission offence and two years and three million rupees, respectively for distribution offence. Similarly, offence against improper use, interference or tampering with electric meters by domestic, industrial, commercial and agricultural consumers have been included. The penalties for such offence may extend to one year or fine which may extend to, one million rupees or both in case of domestic consumers, and three years or fine which may extend to six million rupees or both in case of industrial, commercial and agricultural consumers. Moreover, offence for damaging, destroying or destructing the transmission lines, distribution lines or electric meters have been specified with punishment of up to seven years imprisonment and with fine which shall not be less than three million rupees. The Cabinet also approved to start negotiations on bilateral MoU on Disaster Management between Republic of Turkey and National Disaster Management Authority, Government of Pakistan. Approval was also accorded by the Cabinet to start negotiation on MoU on disaster management between government of Sri Lanka and National Disaster Management Authority, Government of Pakistan. The Cabinet considered the report of the committee examining the issue of seats of non-Muslims in the legislature. A number of proposals were made by the members of the Cabinet and it was decided that the Committee would present its final report to the Cabinet in the light of the recommendations made by members of the Cabinet. In his opening remarks at the cabinet meeting Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf reiterated the Government’s resolve to confront the challenges of energy shortage and the scourge of terrorism with all available resources of the State. The Prime Minister said he would like to convey the strong resolve of the government to overcome the challenges being faced by the people of Pakistan. The Prime Minister strongly condemned the recent wave of terrorism in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan and Gilgit-Baltistan and said, Government sympathized with all the bereaved families and prayed for early recovery of those injured in these cowardly acts of terrorism. He said that such acts could never deter the Government’s resolve to fight the menace of terrorism and culprits of these terrorist acts would be brought to the book. He directed that the law enforcement agencies must beef up security and urged the provincial governments to keep a vigilant eye on any suspicious activity and evolve mechanism to counter any such terrorist act with iron hands. The Prime Minister also asked the provincial government of Balochistan to implement Supreme Court’s verdict in order to improve law and order situation in the province. He assured that the federal government would extend all out assistance to the Balochistan government and all possible measures would be taken for improvement in law and order situation, not only in Balochistan but throughout the country. The Prime Minister reiterated that the Government was committed to resolve all issues including the energy crisis and sincere efforts were being made to enhance capacity of the power generation plants which would help in meeting future energy demand. The Prime Minister said that the credit for present independent judiciary also goes to Pakistan Peoples Party as it participated side by side with the Lawyers Community in the movement for restoration of an Independent Judiciary in 2007 when Musharraf regime forcibly removed the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Pakistan. He said that he appeared personally before the Supreme Court in the contempt case for allegedly not implementing apex court’s decision in the NRO case. His appearance in the court is a testimony to respect for the courts, he said. The Government, its coalition partners, and the Supreme Court jointly want to resolve the issue pertaining to non-implementation of apex court’s verdict in NRO case, according to the law and the Constitution, the Prime Minister said. The Cabinet was informed that power generation and demand- supply position is improving gradually. The Cabinet directed the Ministry of Water & Power to make a detailed presentation and apprise the members of the Cabinet about the steps taken to eliminate load shedding in the short-term and long-term. The Prime Minister declared unequivocally that the government would take all possible measures to overcome the difficulties of the people on account of power shortage. It was decided to convene a Cabinet meeting shortly with a single item agenda to take stock of the measures taken by the government so far and recommend proposals for further improving the power situation.