The Peshawar High Court (PHC) has suspended a military court execution order of Haider Ali. Ali’s lawyer petitioned the PHC to review the case and the court stayed the execution until September 8, while a review of the case takes place. Ali was arrested in 2009 in Swat during the military operation for alleged involvement in terrorist activities and sentenced to death by a military court in April. The lawyer has argued that Ali was 14 years old when he was arrested and was never informed of the charges against him. Sentencing a juvenile offender to death is prohibited by international and Pakistani law. It is also illegal to hold suspects in custody, let alone execute them, without informing them of the charges against them. Military courts are geared towards the goal of executing suspected terrorists, which does not leave any room for a fair trial for the accused or the right to an appeals process. The 21st amendment states: “An extraordinary situation and circumstances exist which demand special measures for speedy trial of offences relating to terrorism, waging of war or insurrection against Pakistan and prevention of acts threatening the security of Pakistan.” This amendment came at a time when terrorist attacks and acts of sectarian violence were occurring with alarming frequency. The Army Public School attack in Peshawar last December, which resulted in the deaths of about 150 people, mostly school children, was the last straw for the government and military. This brutal massacre shook the country to the core and the state resolved to eradicate terrorism once and for all. Yet it is ironic that the measures taken to prevent any more children from dying is now putting the lives of juvenile convicts on the line. It is very fortunate for this otherwise doomed young man that the court, in its wisdom, has suspended the execution order. It is quite likely that there are several other such cases that have gone unnoticed because the families of the accused cannot afford to hire a competent lawyer or do not have the wherewithal to challenge the verdict. Even at the time that the military courts were set up, there were misgivings about whether these expedient military courts would be fair and uphold the rule of law. Haider Ali’s unjust death sentence has confirmed all those fears and has strengthened the argument against military courts. The Karachi operation is another example of how this renewed vigour to fight terrorism has been counterproductive. There have been several reports and eyewitness accounts of police and security forces killing suspects in shootouts without just cause and with no accountability. There is no record of how many people have been killed in the Karachi operation so far and estimates range from somewhere in the hundreds to over a thousand. Personnel, whether they belong to the military, paramilitary, Rangers or police, are not required to justify these killings and the fact that they are undocumented means that there is no review of police encounters. The Karachi operation has so far been anything but transparent and the state owes the people of Pakistan an explanation for every civilian who has been killed since the 21st amendment was passed. Now, COAS General Raheel Sharif has said that more military courts will be set up in Karachi and the Karachi operation will continue with full vigour. The government, military and judiciary all seem to be either unaware of or unperturbed by these state-sanctioned human rights violations. This new system of ‘justice’ will undermine democracy and the credibility of the state. Any nation that denies its citizens the right to a fair trial cannot be called democratic. The military courts were set up because the existing courts were considered far too inefficient to deal with terrorist cases in a timely fashion. They were meant to be a temporary fix to a much larger issue. Yet, given the complete lack of political or judicial will to institute broad-based reform of Pakistan’s legal system, it seems that we may end up going beyond the sunset clause to keep the military courts for the foreseeable future.*