Justice Qazi Faiz Isa important judgement on shariah laws in the country
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Ordering distribution of property among the heirs of late Habibullah, a resident of Swat, as per the laws of Islamic Shariah, Justice Qazi Faez Isa of the Supreme Court (SC) on Tuesday ruled that no court or a Jirga could change the Shariah laws governing the distribution of property among heirs, reported 24NewsHD TV channel.
Hence the court declared the Peshawar High Court’s (PHC) verdict in the case as null and void.
A two-member bench of the apex court, comprising Justice Isa and Justice Yahya Afridi, heard the case.
Justice Isa remarked that it took decades to settle property disputes in Pakistan. “A jirga’s decision could never be a ‘substitute’ for the Islamic laws. Divine laws could not be altered merely on the whims and wishes of a Jirga,” he stated categorically.
He regretted that property documents in this particular case even bore the thumb impression of a seven-year-old child. “Do you *know* a child as young as seven-year-old cannot be handed down death penalty in a murder case,” he clarified.
Justice Isa said it was in everybody’s knowledge that not many people in Pakistan spoke truth.
During the hearing when counsel for the petitioner prayed to the court to also take into account the ground realities, Justice Qazi Faez Isa asked angrily which ground realities he was talking about. “In the area where this property dispute arose, women are not even considered humans,” he said, adding these were the ground realities which military dictators used a pretext to impose martial laws in the country.
“And still we are asked to keep the ground realities in view,” he regretted, and said that property disputes in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia were decided in a day.
