PESHAWAR: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Governor Engineer Shaukatullah said on Friday that provision of justice in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) was vital to ensuring stability in the society, warning that in its absence tribesmen could join the opponent ranks as was happening these days.

`If you don`t deliver justice to tribesmen they will not remain with us due to sense of deprivation and will join the other ranks,` the governor said while addressing the concluding ceremony of the first training course meant for political administrative officers of Fata here at the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Judicial Academy.

The course was attended by officers, including assistant political agents and political tehsildars and naib tehsildars, who have also been serving as judicial officers in their respective tribal agencies.The governor said that the tribesmen had been complaining that the Frontier Crimes Regulation (FCR) was a black law. `I say that FCR itself is not bad, but its misuse by the officers is bad,` he said, adding that even in several other countries, including the US, there were separate laws for indigenous/ native people.

Mr Shaukatullah stated that every tribal area had different traditions, but these were available in codified form called as `Kurram Rewaj or Turizona` only in Kurram Agency. He said that with the support of the judicial academy the traditions would also be codified in other agencies so that it could be utilised in future.

The governor said that from next financial year they would develop proper courtroom in every Fata agency, which would give soft image of the tribal people.

He also supported the idea of providing trainings to tribal maliks and jirga members who often acted as council of elders under the FCR.He said that the federal government had been working on several laws to be extended to Fata, which would help in dispensation of justice to people there. He said that the society could be made more tolerant through such trainings.

The governor said the training was meant to strengthen the system of justice and all the necessary measures were underway to make the FCR a tool of ensuring proper dispensation of justice to tribal people. Director general of the academy, Hayat Ali Shah, stated that the law in tribal areas was introduced with the intention of controlling people there, but after the creation of Pakistan the same law continued to remain in the filed.

He said that the best system and law was the one which was owned by the people, but unfortunately they had been legislating laws for controlling people and not for their welfare.

He pointed out that the Juvenile Justice System Ordinance was extended to Fata several years ago, but so far no juvenile court was set up there.