Women Protection Act: Top Islamic court rules against law

Source: Express Tribune

Date: December 23, 2010

The government on Wednesday decided to challenge in the Supreme Court a Federal Shariat Court’s(FSC) judgment declaring some clauses of the Protection of Women Act-2006 as “violative of the Constitution.”

“We will move the Shariat Appellate Bench of the Supreme Court for the suspension of today’s ruling,” a law ministry official told The Express Tribune, requesting anonymity.

“Sections 11 and 28 of the Protection of Women Act-2006 are hereby declared ultra vires to Article 203DD of the constitution because these provisions annulled the overriding effect of the Hudood Ordinance-1979,” FSC Chief Justice Agha Rafiq Ahmed Khan, who was heading the three-member bench, said in the ruling.

Referring to its jurisdiction, the FSC verdict said that “no legislative instrument can control, regulate or amend this jurisdiction which was mandated in Chapter 3A of Part VII of the constitution of Pakistan.”

Aslam Ghumman, Shahid Orakzai, Abdul Latif Sufi and Mian Abdul Razzaq Aamir had filed identical petitions in the FSC challenging various sections of the Protection of Women Act-2006 and the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC).

The judgment has sparked a constitutional debate on the FSC’s powers to rule on the constitutionality of any law.

Former president of the Supreme Court Bar Association Qazi Anwer told The Express Tribune that the Federal Shariat Court has no constitutional authority to declare any law as against the constitution.

For more details: http://tribune.com.pk/story/93167/shariat-court-terms-women-protection-act-clauses-repugnant/