ISLAMABAD: Expressing serious concern over gross injustices existing in society along with evils of harassment, blackmailing and frivolous litigations based on evidence procured through illegal use of modern devices and techniques for ulterior motives, illegal and wrongful gains, speakers and panellists called for repealing Article 164 of the Qanun-e-Shahadat Order, 1984.
Giving background and circumstances behind promulgation of Qanun-e-Shahadat Order, 1984, Supreme Court advocate and Pakistan Bar Council member Muhammad Aqil stated that Qanun-e-Shahadat Order, 1984, was promulgated by the military regime of General Ziaul Haq as a tool for denial of justice to private parties by providing legality to conversations (recorded through use of modern electronic devices and techniques) in private/personal disputes of civil and commercial nature as evidence in courts.
Aqil was addressing participants at the “National Conference on Law and Technology in the Digital Age” while sharing his professional experience and reading his paper on “E-Dispute Resolution: Evidence Electronic Case Management – Issues, Challenges and Reforms Admission of Electronic Evidence in Private, Civil and Commercial Disputes”.
Aqil stated that in this modern technological and computer age it had become far more easier to fake up evidence by using, erasing, tampering and making interpolations in audio/video cassettes/CDs and preparing fake and fabricated tapes/cassettes/CDs and morphed up images by parties trying to establish false, fake and fabricated claims against rivals in all types of litigations, be it civil, commercial or criminal.
Demanding a fair and just law of evidence as the need of the hour, other distinguished keynote speakers and jurists, including US judge from Minessota Hildy Bowbeer and Muhammad Amir Munir of Punjab Judicial Academy, shared their respective experiences of electronic case-management in the United States and Pakistan with progress and challenges at trial.
Addressing the closing session, Honourable Justice (r) Tassaduq Hussain Jillani said the gap between technological innovation and the legal rules necessary to govern such developments was ever-widening. He said that it was must to develop and pursue rational efficient policies in order to ensure that Pakistan makes the best possible use of technology as a driving and democratising force, accommodating business and entrepreneurs while protecting the rights and the privacy of the consumers and the public at large.
Keeping this in view, the former chief justice of Pakistan emphasised that regulation must ensure that the Internet and the world of technology was a safe and equitable place.
Published in Daily Times, August 5th 2017.
