Daily Times Editorial March 15, 2013

Too little, too late On the eve of the dissolution of parliament, it was strange to see both houses active in passing legislation in a hurry. Having already been passed by the National Assembly (NA), the National Counter-Terrorism Authority (NACTA) bill was passed by the Senate unanimously despite a critique by PPP Senator Raza Rabbani and questioning of the haste on display by Senator Mohsin Leghari. Rabbani’s reservations revolved around the fact that though it is described as an independent body, NACTA did not answer to the description since it would work under the bureaucracy. He also pointed out that the composition of the NACTA Board of Governors (BoG) meant that the military would command a superior position, one proof of which was that the prime minister, despite heading NACTA and its BoG, would be able to do nothing if the head of any agency did not attend NACTA meetings. Rabbani went on to say that the NACTA BoG was expected to be comprised of terrorism experts and federal secretaries, and questioned their ‘expertise’ in countering terrorism. He therefore, for all these reasons, did not think NACTA would fulfil the objectives for which it was being set up. Mohsin Leghari on the other hand did not want such an important piece of legislation passed in haste and wanted it sent to the committee concerned for further deliberations. The house nevertheless passed the bill and no party opposed it. The main purpose of the setting up of NACTA is said to be to ensure coordination and interaction amongst the federal, provincial, civilian and military law enforcement and intelligence organisations. Although we have consistently argued in this space for the setting up of a centralised anti-terrorism body, whether NACTA lives up to that billing remains to be seen. While the Senate was smoothing the path of the NACTA bill, the NA unanimously approved the Anti-Terrorism (Second Amendment) bill 2013, but only after the government, in its inexplicable hurry to see the bill passed, accepted 18 amendments suggested by the PML-N, MQM and others. Although the bill was originally being described as stringent, analysts are of the view that the incorporation of these amendments has drawn the teeth of the law. The bill empowers the government to preventively detain, for 30 days at a time and after recording reasons for the same, any person involved in any offence under the Anti-Terrorism Act 1997 (as now amended by this bill), or against whom a reasonable complaint has been made or credible information received or a reasonable suspicion exists of his having been so involved, for purpose of inquiry. Further, this preventive detention may be extended by an anti-terrorism court for 30 days at a time, while recording reasons for the same, up to a maximum of 90 days. Interestingly, journalists have been included in the list of people, departments and installations against whom attacks and intimidation would be dealt with under this amended law. Last but not least, the bill empowers the authorities to declare as proscribed any organisation composed of the leading lights of an already proscribed organisation who seek to re-invent themselves under a new name (as has happened to all the organisations banned under the Musharraf regime). It is amazing that at the fag end of its tenure, a fire has suddenly been lit under the government (with some help from the opposition) on these issues when five years have been wasted unnecessarily. To recall, the EU offered Pakistan a centralised anti-terrorism organisation, to be funded and provided training by EU experts, years ago. That proposal fell foul of turf wars over who would lead it, the Interior Minister, a civilian, or someone in uniform. Needless to say, the outgoing minister proved unacceptable to the military (and perhaps others), and the military seemed reluctant to share intelligence with its civilian counterparts. The present arrangement has elevated the office of head of NACTA to the prime minister, incorporated the heads of all civilian and military law enforcement and intelligence agencies, plus the four provincial chief ministers. If anything, this structure seems too unwieldy and therefore scepticism will persist that it is unworkable, quite apart from the quizzical questions why this has been promulgated now, when its fate would only be known at the hands of the incoming government after the elections. While the idea is good in principle, all these questions and anomalies as to structure, functioning and timing mean that we will only know if this really is an advance on present arrangements (including preventive detention for a similar period under the MPO) in the fullness of time.