FATA minister has no plans to retable Riwaj Act

PESHAWAR: The Federal Minister for States and Frontier Regions told Arab News on Friday that he did not want to pursue the Tribal Areas Riwaj Act 2017 that was rejected by a National Assembly Standing Committee on Thursday.
SAFRON’s Lt Gen (retd) Abdul Qadir Baloch tabled the bill in the Lower House of Parliament in May 2017.
The bill aimed to provide a system of administration of justice, maintenance of peace and good governance in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and Protected or Administered Areas.
Speaking to Arab News, Baloch said that the government would only pursue the bill at the request of tribal elders or parliamentarians.
Asked if FATA Reforms had been put on hold, he said work was under way and that the bill extending the courts’ jurisdiction to tribal areas was likely to be approved during the next Senate session.
Meanwhile, Chairman of the National Assembly Standing Committee on State and Frontier Regions, Muhammad Jamal ud Din, told Arab News that the committee had rejected the bill because it did not even define the term “Riwaj,” a word signifying customs or traditions in Pashto language.
“All tribal agencies don’t have the same Riwaj,” he added. “How can we enforce a law in the name of custom or tradition across the tribal belt?”
Naeema Kishwar Khan, another National Assembly member, said that even the tribal people objected to the Riwaj Act.
“The Bill called for both jirga (the traditional assembly of leaders) and court to resolve issues,” she explained. “But what if the court decided one thing and tribal elders decided something else?”
A Peshawar-based analyst, Shamim Shahid, told Arab News that the Tribal Areas Riwaj Bill 2017 was to support the political administration and military and to strengthen the Frontier Crimes Regulations — the laws under which FATA is directly governed by Pakistan’s federal government.
He added that the Bill called for resolution of issues through the same jirga system that had long been criticized due to its partial decisions in the tribal territories.
“Most of the time, a party is deprived of its rights when influential people pressure jirgas,” he added.