The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Saturday stated that it is against the Constitution to arrest individuals on suspicion of breaching the peace as the court issued its written order on petitions by PTI’s Shandana Gulzar and Sharhyar Afridi.
A day earlier, the IHC declared ‘illegal’ the 1980 presidential order (PO) No. 18, ruling that the Islamabad deputy commissioner does not have the authority to issue detention orders under section 3 of the Maintenance of Public Order.
In the 89-page verdict issued by Justice Babar Sattar, the court stated that arresting individuals without sufficient evidence is tantamount to abuse of power and the court has approved five petitions against detention ordered passed by deputy commissioner Islamabad while one has been disposed of.
The verdict further stated that the authority to issue MPO orders by DC Islamabad is against the law and the chief commissioner’s notification from 1992 assigning such powers is also illegal. The court instructed the federal government to formulate rules related to the use of provincial powers within three months. The order added that in the case of Islamabad, the federal government should act as a provincial government rather than the chief commissioner.
The court further ruled that Article 3 of the MPO is in conflict with Article 10 (4) of the Constitution, hence, no individual can be arrested merely on the grounds that he or she can pose a danger to civic peace. “Arrests are made when an act is underway or has been committed.” The court regretted in the order that after governments under dictators, the democratic governments have also continued the practice of misusing MPO powers.
The IHC stated that detention under MPO is illegal as the law has to come into play when an offense has been committed and neither pre-trial detention nor the powers of preventive detention can be exercised before the enactment of the act, nor does the chief commissioner has the authority to apply laws of the federation or the province. Earlier, announcing the reserved verdict on the petitions of PTI leaders, Justice Sattar observed that only the federal cabinet should have the power to issue detention orders under the law. The IHC had, on September 7, restrained the deputy commissioner of Islamabad from exercising section 3 of Maintenance of Public Order (MPO) powers until further notice.
