- Reference not supported by judicial precedent: order.
- Comments deleted during the judgment but wrongly included in the judgment: judge.
- The observation reports 4 countries designated as “terrorist states”.
An Islamabad court has ordered the removal of a controversial paragraph mentioning “terrorist states” from the verdict that convicted lawyer Imaan Mazari and her husband Hadi Ali Chattha in the controversial tweets case last week.
In an order, Additional District and Sessions Judge Muhammad Afzal Majoka said the controversial paragraph was added “due to a clerical error which is not supported by any statutory provision, judicial precedent, executive notification, international instrument or authoritative reference, so it may be deleted as this sentence is vague and ambiguous”.
The judgment further notes that the stenographer mentioned in his written response that this sentence, along with other sentences, had been deleted during the correction of the judgment, but that at the time of final printing it had been wrongly included and “that this error on his part was in good faith.”
The now deleted paragraph, which appeared in paragraph 36 on page 18, mentioned that all four countries are currently designated as terrorist states.
At a weekly press briefing the day before, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Tahir Andrabi said Pakistan “does not subscribe” to the judge’s opinion.
“We have seen the judgment. These are the views of the learned judge. Pakistan, of course, does not subscribe to this view. This type of designation of terrorist states does not exist either in the language of the UN or under international law,” he added.
