Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari Thursday said he would strongly oppose military courts extension.
“I will oppose the extension of military courts’ laws at every forum,” Zardari said in a brief chat with media representatives in Islamabad.
The PPP leader also criticised the previous two-year extension to military courts in 2017.
In March 2017, military courts were revived for the next two years after then-president Mamnoon Hussain ratified a National Assembly bill on the matter.
The extension, however, had come after more than two months of deliberations and a tug of war between the government and opposition parties over the technicalities of military courts’ functioning.
The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) had argued that the revival of military courts was imperative keeping in view the “recent spate of terrorism in the country”. The PPP, however, had opposed the extension.
The legislation was aimed at granting legal cover to the military courts for trying civilians charged with terrorism. The two-year extension to military courts is set to expire in March 2019.
Published in Daily Times, December 21st 2018.
