High Court annuls Criminal Court decision excluding defence witnesses in apostasy protest case

The High Court has ruled that the Criminal Court's decision not to accept five witnesses submitted by the defence in a case alleging a person was made to apostasise during a protest was unlawful, and has annulled that decision. The case is a charge filed by the state under the Penal Code against Ahmed Faiz of S. Feydhoo Pink House, alleging that a Muslim was publicly characterised as an apostate. The five witnesses were submitted on behalf of Faiz to rebut the testimony of two police officers submitted by the state, described as being in the area where the incident occurred. However, in connection with an earlier court submission made by the state, the Criminal Court decided not to accept those five witnesses into the trial on the basis that they were not witnesses relevant to the case. Faiz appealed the decision to the High Court. The unanimous judgment of the three judges who considered the case noted that under the law of evidence, a witness submitted to raise a question regarding the credibility of a person giving testimony can also be considered a relevant witness to the case. Although the form in which the defence submitted the witnesses stated the reasons briefly, the High Court's judgment delivered on Tuesday stated that since the reply form given in response to the earlier court submission provided full details of the matter, the lower court should have taken those details into consideration. The judgment also stated that excluding all defence witnesses together merely because of a deficiency in the wording of the form, without taking into account the details available, is a matter that would narrow to an unacceptable degree the right to defend guaranteed by Article 51 (k) of the Constitution. The High Court has therefore annulled the Criminal Court's decision and ordered the Criminal Court to state reasons regarding the acceptance of those witnesses and reach a fresh decision, taking into account the details in the reply form submitted by the defence and the standards of the law of evidence.