MEHRAM ALI CASE Almost immediately after its enactment the ATA was challenged before the Supreme Court in the landmark case Mehram Ali v The Federation of Pakistan24. Mehram Ali, member of a Shia organization, was charged with detonating a remote-controlled bomb in the vicinity of the Lahore courts, where two Sunni leaders of an anti-Shia group had been brought for a hearing on 18 January, 1997. The explosion resulted in the deaths of 23 people and injured more than 50. Following the enactment of the ATA, Mehram Ali’s case was sent from a Sessions Court judge to a newly established ATC which convicted and awarded 23 death sentences and 550 years of imprisonment. Thereafter, he appealed to the Anti-Terror Appellate Tribunal which upheld its conviction. Following the dismissal, Mehram Ali filed a writ petition under Article 199 of the Constitution of Pakistan before the Lahore High Court which assumed jurisdiction despite the provisions of the ATA which granted exclusive jurisdiction over all appeals from decisions of the ATCs to Special Appellate Tribunals. The High Court upheld the decision of the ATC leading to an appeal to the Supreme Court. Though the Supreme Court upheld the original decision it also declared the bulk of the ATA, as it existed, to be unconstitutional25. It stressed that no parallel legal system could be constructed that completely bypassed the rules and oversight of the regular legal system, ordering that these special courts would also be subject to the same procedural rules as regular courts, including most importantly, rules of evidence. The decisions of these courts would be subject to appeal before the constitutionally mandated higher courts. These changes were incorporated into the ATA through the Anti-Terrorism (Amendment) Ordinance of 1998. The Mehram Ali decision did much to rectify some of the fair trial issues posited by the promulgation of the ATA and brought the courts within the judicial oversight of constitutional courts. However, many pressing issues that result in potential miscarriages of justice remained part of the ATC system. 24 PLD 1998 SC 1445 25 Charles H. Kennedy, “The Creation and Development of Pakistan’s Anti-terrorism Regime, 1997-2002,” in RELIGIOUS RADICALISM AND SECURITY IN SOUTH ASIA, ed. Satu P. LIMAYE, Mohan Malik, and Robert G. Wirsing (Honolulu: ASIA PACIFIC CENTER FOR SECURITY STUDIES, 2004), 391