Jurisdictional Ambiguity Between ATCs And Session Courts: Causes, Consequences And Recommendations

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The jurisdictional boundary between Anti-Terrorism Courts (ATCs) and ordinary Sessions Courts has been one of the most persistently contested questions in Pakistan's criminal justice system since the enactment of the Anti-Terrorism Act 1997 (ATA). This article argues that this ambiguity primarily stems from the Supreme Court of Pakistan's persistent inconsistency between two competing interpretive approaches to Section 6 of the ATA: the actus reus based cumulative effect approach and the mens rea based design approach. The article traces the evolution of this interpretive conflict across three decades of ATA jurisprudence, examines its consequences, namely, the overcrowding of ATCs, erosion of legal certainty, and procedural prejudice to accused persons, and advances recommendations for structural reform, including judicial consistency, a higher jurisdictional threshold, and compulsory pre-trial screening.