Military courts can give verdict in cases of civilians linked to May 9 violence: Pak SC

Pakistan’s Supreme Court on Friday gave conditional permission to military courts to announce reserved verdicts in cases of 85 civilians allegedly involved in the violent protests of May 9 last year.

A seven-member bench led by Justice Aminuddin Khan was hearing the intra-court appeals (ICA) against last year’s judgment of a five-member Bench that favoured criminal courts over military courts for the trials of these civilians.

Passing an order at the end of Friday’s hearing, Justice Khan specified that the verdicts of the military courts would be subject to its final decision on the appeals against the October 23, 2023 ruling.

In its order, the court ruled that suspects who can be accorded concessions in their sentences “should be given so and released”, but the “suspects who cannot be released should be moved to jails once their sentence has been pronounced.” The case is about more than 100 suspects who were handed over to the military authorities for trial for their alleged involvement in the attacks on army installations during the protest on May 9, 2023, against the arrest of former prime minister Imran Khan.

On October 23 last year, the five-member SC bench led by Justice Ijazul Ahsan unanimously held that trying civilians in military courts was against the Constitution. It also stated that the accused would not be tried in military courts but in criminal courts. However, on December 13 last year, the apex court, in a 5-1 majority verdict, conditionally suspended its own October ruling — albeit by a different bench — pending a final judgement as it heard a set of ICAs.