V. INADEQUATE OPPORTUNITY FOR DEFENSE Pakistan does not provide individuals with adequate time and facilities for the preparation of their defense. The ICCPR requires that all defendants have “adequate time and facilities for the preparation of [their] defence and to communicate with counsel of [their] own choosing.”139 The Human Rights Committee has found violations where a court refused to postpone a trial, despite the fact that the defendant had never met with defense counsel until trial140 or in very brief meetings.141 The Committee has also found such a breach when lack of time “affected counsel's possibility of determining which witnesses to call.”142 An adequate defense is all the more vital where a conviction may result in deprivation of life;143 a state must “[a]fford special protection [to accused] by allowing time and facilities for the preparation of their defence, including the adequate assistance of counsel at every stage of the proceedings, above and beyond the protection afforded in non-capital cases.”144 Aside from poor quality of representation, limited time and resources further handicap the legal defense that capital defendants in Pakistan are able to mount. Counsel is often assigned to indigent defendants once a trial is already under way,145 and as a result defense attorneys are rarely involved in investigations, nor provided sufficient time and resources to expend upon parallel inquiries. Pakistan's special courts for political and terrorism-related acts have dramatically reduced the time available to prepare for trial. Between 1987 and 1994, Pakistan established Special Courts for Speedy Trial that had exclusive jurisdiction over certain offenses.146 These included non-violent acts of political dissidence such as sedition147 as well as acts of violence such as “waging or attempting to wage war, or abetting waging of war against Pakistan,”148 for which the death sentence could be imposed. Aftab Bahadur, who was arrested on murder charges in October 1992, was convicted and sentenced to death by the Special Court for Speedy Trials in Lahore in April 1993. His conviction was confirmed by the Supreme Appellate Court in March 1994. During the trial, “Pakistan refused even to grant his lawyers the few days needed to present evidence which would have proved his innocence.”149 The ATA requires that the investigating officer complete the investigation of cases triable by the court within thirty working days.150 Furthermore, the ATA imposes a seven-day limit (with a two-day extension) on trials.151 These time limits, combined with an enormous caseload,152 impose further strain on the ability of lawyers to prepare an adequate defence for their clients, and would seem to increase pressure on prosecutors to rely on confessions, all-too-often coerced. Stated differently, these hastened proceedings, in combination with the shifted burden of proof and lowered evidentiary standards, “give the federal government unwarranted procedural shortcuts and a tool with which to coerce suspects,” according to the International Crisis Group. 153 A “MOST SERIOUS CRIME”: PAKISTAN'S UNLAWFUL USE OF THE DEATH PENALTY 18