anti-terrorism court (ATC)

The anti-terrorism court (ATC) was established in Pakistan, under Nawaz Sharif’s government, to deal with terrorism cases. It has been created by the 1997 Anti-Terrorist Act, amended on 24 October 1998 by the Anti-Terrorism (Amendment) Ordinance following the Supreme Court judgement (Merham Ali versus Federation of Pakistan, 1998) declaring most of its provisions unconstitutional.

A short time before being ousted out of power by Pervez Musharraf’s coup, Sharif enacted the 25 August 1999 Pakistan Anti-Terrorism (Amendment) Ordinance which generalized the ATC system to all of the country. Following Pervez Musharraf’s 1999 coup, Nawaz Sharif was judged and given a life sentence in 2000 by the ATC, which was commuted into exile.

anti-terrorism court (ATC) were established due to the increasing terrorism in the country, more legislative measures are required to enhance the effectiveness of the law enforcing agencies in tackling heinous crime, specially conferring powers of investigations to rangers, providing legal cover to joint investigation team (JIT), enabling police to become complainants in extortion cases and special provisions for protections of witness (faceless) through video recording.