Military courts in Pakistan unconstitutional: Former CJ

Former Pakistan chief justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry  said establishing military courts in the country to try terror suspects is unconstitutional.

“Military courts are illegal and unconstitutional. The basic structure of the constitution guarantees an independent judiciary, and military courts cannot be established in the presence of an independent judiciary,” Chaudhry is reported to have said.

The former chief justice also said that no amendment or law could be made which challenged the fundamental basis of the constitution.

In the wake of the Dec 16 Peshawar school massacre by terrorists, all parliamentary parties had decided Dec 24 to set up special courts to be presided over by army officers for trying suspected terrorists.

As the Supreme Court of Pakistan declared in 1999 that the setting up of military courts was unconstitutional and illegal, therefore, the political leadership decided to amend the constitution to provide constitutional cover to the proposed special courts.