Counter-Terrorism and Islamic Justice: A Critical Examination of Pakistan’s Anti-Terrorism Legislation

Abstract

This study offers a critical legal insight on Pakistan’s Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997 (ATA) and its relevance to the principles of Islamic justice. Though the ATA was aimed to protect the security of the state and maintain public order, its enforcement, owing to vague definitions, procedural variances, and the lowering of evidentiary standards, significantly breaches the moral and legal principles of Sharīʿah. Citing the Islamic principles of ḥirābah and the ʿadl, amānah and the key principle of al-ḥudūd tudraʾ bi’l-shubuhāt, the author examines how Pakistan’s counter-terrorism legislation continues to observe, or violate, the ethical and procedural Islamic principles of justice. Due to the precise exceptional legal powers of the state and the administrative ease, the pursuit of security has far outweighed the pursuit of justice, resulting crisis of legitimacy. This lack of justice clearly demonstrates the necessity of Sharʿīḥah based legal reform. The counter-terrorism legislation in Pakistan will only be able to achieve a balance of justice on the scale of moral accountability, within a framework that embraces evidentiary standards and the preservation of human dignity on basis of Shariáh doctrine kamat al nafs (human dignity). The study provides new scholarly ground for scholars, policymakers, and legal professionals while harmonizing national security with Shariah ethics and argues that, ultimately, true security can never be achieved without justice being compromised.