The provincial assembly here, dominated by an alliance of religious parties, voted unanimously on Monday to introduce Islamic law to the North West Frontier Province, fulfilling an election promise that has worried the national government and its US allies.
The six-party religious alliance, the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal, which holds a majority in the assembly, is opposed to the US presence in Afghanistan and is sympathetic to Taliban elements that are continuing to fight US forces. It has campaigned to introduce Islamic law, or Shariah, to ensure better justice for the population, but critics accuse it of dragging the province back into the Taliban era.
The bill, the first introduced in any province of Pakistan, rules that Shariah will override all other laws in the local courts, and orders that the educational and financial sectors be brought in line with Islamic teaching.
"All the evils of society will be crushed," the bill reads. It further promises that corruption will be rooted out, nudity and vulgarity wiped out and the life and property of the individual protected.
The bill calls for the provincial government to arrange for training and education in Islamic law and Arabic, and stipulates that the law will not be applicable to non-Muslims. A second bill, known as the Hisba Act, is being prepared to enforce Shariah through a system of local ombudsmen and the religious police.
The vote was unanimous by oral vote after barely two hours of discussion in the assembly, where the religious alliance holds 67 of the 124 seats.
Opposition legislators raised questions without really opposing the bill. They wondered about the need for it, for instance, when Pakistan's constitution already recognizes the supremacy of Islamic law. But they also said they could not oppose something that was fundamental to the Muslim faith. Pakistan is overwhelmingly Muslim, and the North West Frontier province is particularly conservative.
Representatives of the Christian population said they were giving their support to the bill because it respected the rights of non-Muslim minorities.
The head of the provincial government, Akram Durrani, promised to carry out Shariah law according to the letter of the bill, and promised to root out corruption and other abuses.
The minister for law, Malik Zafar Azam, said that he had hoped to bring in the Hisba Act, which he called the "implementing arm" of the Shariah law, this week during the current assembly session, but that it still needed more discussion.
The Hisba Act has raised concerns not only among opposition politicians but also among many of the educated liberal elite of Peshawar, the military and apparently even within the presidential circle in Islamabad, the guardian of Pakistan's image abroad.
Still in its draft form, the bill allows for a mokhtaseb, an ombudsman or accounting officer, who will rule on issues of vice and virtue and will deal out swift justice with the help of a religious police force that he will control. These ombudsmen, men with secondary school education and religious training, would be appointed at provincial, district and subdistrict levels. They would adjudicate local disputes and provincial administrative issues.
The Hisba Act has alarmed many because it grants significant judicial powers to a single man, who is provided with his own police force. There is no provision to appeal a ruling of the mokhtaseb, and refusal to abide by his decisions would draw a six-month sentence, according to a copy of the draft bill.
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