By Ghazala Minallah d/o Late Justice Safdar Shah

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UN Rapporteur Asma Jahangir has said that the amendments made under the Army Act violated human rights and the Constitution. She said granting military courts the authority to try offences from murder to libel reflected the government's lack of confidence in its selected Provisional Constitution Order (PCO) judges.

She said that in order to settle scores with lawyers, human rights activists and defiant journalists, the law was given effect from January 2003. "This also allows the government to legitimise its illegal acts of disappearances carried out by the intelligence agencies with impunity,"
 
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Saud Memon owned the property where the remains of Daniel Pearl, the murdered Wall Street Journal correspondent were found in 2002. According to Memon's family, he left for South Africa after this discovery in Ahsanabad, Gadap Town. He was apprehensive of his likely arrest in this high-profile murder case. The FBI arrested him from South Africa on March 7, 2003, kept him at Guantanamo Bay for more than two years and then handed him over to the Pakistani authorities in 2006, according to the family. Memon returned home on April 28, 2007 in a state of extreme emaciation. He was presented to the Supreme Court Bench on May 14 in the forced disappearances case. He was unable to speak as a result of alleged torture and died of 'tuberculosis and meningitis' on May 18, 2007. More

 Dawn, CBS News, Newsline, Co-operative Research

the Harvard Law School Association has decided to award Pakistani Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry its highest honor: The Harvard Law School Medal of Freedom
The Medal of Freedom was established by Harvard Law School to honor the achievements of individuals who have worked to uphold the legal system's fundamental commitment to freedom, justice, and equality. To symbolize this commitment, the award bears the image of Charles Hamilton Houston, whose leadership of the crusade that culminated in the landmark Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education exemplifies the highest ideals of our democracy.
Past recipients of the Medal of Freedom include the members of the Brown v. Board of Education litigation team and former South African President Nelson Mandela.
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 Doctors tortured, barred from meeting Ramday

LAHORE

SCORES of doctors and members of the civil society — under the banner of Pakistan Medical Association (Punjab and Lahore chapters) — were barred from entering the residence of Justice Khalil-ur-Rehman Ramday for paying tributes to him on his bold stand for the supremacy of rule of law and Constitution of Pakistan. More...

Washingtonpost Photo Report