Pakistan’s jailed prime minister Imran Khan on Saturday moved the Supreme Court, challenging the changes made to the Official Secrets Act and the Pakistan Army Act.
Khan, the 70-year-old chairman of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), and the party vice-chairman and former foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, 67, are charged with the violation of the Official Secrets Act in connection with the leakage of a confidential diplomatic cable from Pakistan’s embassy in Washington.
The petition filed by Khan through his counsel Shohaib Shaheen contends that the amendments made in the Official Secrets Act and the Pakistan Army Act are in violation of the constitutional provisions of human rights.
It draws the apex court’s attention to amendments introduced in the Official Secrets Act, which empower ‘secret agencies to raid and detain any citizen or enter and search any person in any place without obtaining a search warrant from any court of law,’ terming them ‘unethical’ and in violation of the Constitution.
The petition contends that the amendments are in violation of various articles of the Constitution, which guarantee civil liberties, including the right to liberty, dignity, free speech, fair trial and due process under the law, among other fundamental rights.