Pakistan: Anti-terrorism authority

THE FRONTIER POST

Just a week before it runs out its five-year term and the presence of several identical enactments on statute books, the National Assembly on Friday passed by a unanimous vote a key anti-terror law that seeks to establish, for the first time, a National Counter Terrorism Authority as a focal institution to integrate efforts against terrorism and extremism. The bill, the latest in a series of anti-terror laws authored by the PPP-led coalition government, was adopted by the Senate of March 5 and the president's authentication will transform it into an act of parliament. The haste shown by the government in securing the passage of the bill gives a strong indication that the law was not given due consideration and the government wants it to enact it for reasons best known to the country's political leadership. The authority will function through a board of governors to be chaired by the prime minister and assisted by an executive committee headed by the interior minister, with a national coordinator and a deputy to execute the board's policies and plans and government instructions within the ambit of a national policy against terrorism that the authority has been mandated to formulate. The law seeks to interrogate suspects by at least by a police inspector and entertaining evidence coming through even through audio and video recordings, phone recordings and emails besides authorizing government authorities to take action against financiers of terrorism along with confiscation of assets. Anti-terrorism laws usually include specific amendments allowing the state to bypass its own legislations when fighting terrorism-related crimes, on the grounds of necessity. Because of this suspension of regular procedure, critics often allege that anti-terrorism legislation endangers democracy by creating a state of exception that allows an authoritarian style of government. Governments often state that they are necessary temporary measures that will go when the danger ends. The conflict, however, continues to persist as long as measures are necessary to combat terrorism. Thus, the means to counter terrorism may also include anti-democratic legislation. Pakistan has undergone several experiments while devising anti-terror legislation and this bill is one of them with all its merits and demerits. For example, the enactment has all the ingredients in it which cause infringement of fundamental rights in the wake of authorizing the police to accept even audio recording as evidence although this aspect can be misused to intimidate opponents which has been the hallmark of police investigations for long. As for formulating a fresh national anti-terror policy, the government could have adopted the consensus resolution that a joint session of parliament passed on October 22, 2008 after a two-week in-camera briefing by senior military and civil intelligence officers to work as a policy.