Whatsapp

" WITNESS PROTECTION LAWS IN PAKISTAN--- WITNESS PROTECTION LAWS IN PAKISTAN--- AN OVERVIEW By Kamran Adil, Police Service of Pakistan INTRODUCTION Crime is a social phenomenon and response to it constitutes the very criminal justice system. In Pakistan, the response to crime in a systemic manner suffers from many a problem. One of the weaknesses, as noted by the experts, is the protection of witnesses, who in turn feed into the testimonial evidence relied by the courts for adjudication. For long, there has been discussion on protecting the witnesses. The instant write-up will examine the latest legislation introduced in this regard in an analytical manner. The legislation related to the protection of witnesses has been introduced at both the federal as well as the provincial level. To appraise the legislation in an organized manner, the issues have been discussed thematically: a. CONSTITUTIONALITY OF THE CRIMINAL LAW After doing away with the Concurrent List of the legislative subjects common between the Federation and the Provinces through the eighteenth constitutional amendment in 2010, a new concurrent legislative domain to the extent of the 'criminal law, criminal procedure and evidence' was introduced to the Constitution through its Articles 142 and 143. Conjointly read, the two constitutional provisions prefer federal laws over the provincial laws. The practice of legislation on the subject, however, is far from what was intended. The gap between the impact of Article 143 of the Constitution and the dictates of the provincial autonomy needs an authoritative constitutional adjudication to neatly draw the line between the Federation and the Provinces in the areas of the 'criminal law, the criminal procedure and the evidence'. At the moment, by the end of 2017, the…