by Syed Irfan Raza | Malik Asad in Dawn, December 20th, 2023
ISLAMABAD: Justice Miangul Hassan Aurangzeb will take up former prime minister Imran Khan’s plea challenging in-camera proceedings of the cipher trial at Adiala jail today (Wednesday).
Mr Khan in his petition also challenged his de-novo trial in jail and subsequent developments, including the framing of charges and a gag order on the media.
On the other hand, the Islamabad High Court (IHC) issued a detailed judgement explaining reasons for scrapping the earlier round of proceedings of the Special Court (Official Secrets Act) due to a lack of transparency and openness. The court links the open court proceedings with the independence of the judicial system.
The bench noted that the Islamabad administration, upon the trial court judge’s request, initiated the process to hold the proceedings in jail as it informed the interior ministry about a police report expressing certain apprehensions related to law and order if the trial were to be conducted in the courtroom. Based on this information, the law ministry issued a notification for conducting Mr Khan’s trial in jail.
The detailed order stated that on Nov 8, 2023, the chief commissioner re-initiated the process of conducting the proceedings in jail. The interior ministry referred the letter to the law ministry, which forwarded a summary to the federal cabinet, seeking its approval.
It noted that before the issuance of the notification for conducting the trial in jail, the Special Court judge had not passed any judicial order for holding the proceedings or trial in jail, against which a revision could be preferred. It noted the judge conducted the proceeding in-camera and he “ought to have realised that an open trial is the minimum requisite of a fair trial, and that the manner in which he conducted the proceedings was destructive of the principles of fair trial”.
https://www.dawn.com/news/1799274/imran-challenges-cipher-indictment-before-ihc
