Yesterday's London Guardian reports that in Pakistan, the government will announce today an arrangement under which a mild form of Islamic law will be imposed in the Malakand region of the North West Frontier Province. Taliban insurgents, who control much of the nearby Swat Valley, support a system of speedy Islamic justice and have imposed rigid Wahabi Islamic rule in portions under their control. (See prior posting.) Under the new arrangement for Malakand, religious experts, known as qazi, will sit alongside regular judges to make certain that court rulings comply with Sharia. However provincial government leaders say the main goal of the change is to speed up the slow justice process in the country-- with criminal cases to be completed in 4 months and civil cases in 6 months. Some see this as an attempt to undermine support for Taliban extremists, while others see it as capitulation to them.
UPDATE: The Feb. 18 issue of Indian Express gives more technical details on the court that will be set up in Malakand. A special bench of the Peshawar High Court will be set up, and will be renamed Dar-ul-Quza (Qazi court). A sessions judge —to now be called Qazi — will hear cases with an Alim-e-Din (Quranic scholar) who will decide "religious technicalities." Meanwhile Tuesday's New York Times sets the decision on a new judicial structure in the context of a broader truce that has been agreed to between the government and the Taliban. It says that the arrangement effectively concedes the area as a Taliban sanctuary.
