Law of the hammer

DO the laws of judicial gravity apply equally to a man throwing a shoe at an officer of the court as they do to the book being thrown back at him? Perhaps they do, if the offence is adjudicated in an anti-terrorism court. In March, during a courtroom hearing in Multan, a suspect imprisoned for theft and awaiting written orders for pre-approved bail lashed out at the judge — first verbally and then with his shoe. The FIR filed against him included Sections 186, 353 and 506 of the Pakistan Penal Code and, rather incredibly, Section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act. With the matter of projectile footwear classified as an act of terror, on Saturday, an ATC judge handed down a cumulative 18-year sentence (14 years, or what was previously considered a life sentence, for Section 7). Could there be a better illustration of our criminal justice system, in thrall of a monolithic security paradigm, frivolously using the instrument of ATCs to try cases that fall outside their intended purpose and deliver disproportionate punishments?

While there is no condoning attacks on judges — or anyone, for that matter — the crime must be seen in the context of the circumstances in which it occurred. The right to speedy and fair justice applies as much to defendants as it does to litigants. It does not require much imagination to place oneself in the shoes of a suspect, languishing in prison for months, even years, awaiting lengthy court proceedings. That such a man, in police remand in a relatively secure environment, could ‘terrorise’ the courtroom so is an absurd application of the ATA, made even more baffling by its arbitrary interpretation. Consider another, more high-profile shoe-hurling incident that took place in Lahore around the same time, in which three men were charged for attacking former prime minister Nawaz Sharif at a public gathering. There, the ATC judge ordered the removal of Section 7 from the FIR. Not every offence is a nail in search of a hammer.