A mockery is being made of our courts, the lawyers and the president of Pakistan himself.
RAWALPINDI: The government imposed a moratorium on the death penalty under pressure from the European Union but initially lifted it only for terrorists after the APS tragedy, apparently under pressure from the military. This gives the impression that killings which did not occur in terror incidents were being trivialised, and were considered to be not serious enough to justify the death penalty. The government was also shaken by a few dozen tweets and demonstrations by a few so-called liberals and members of the civil society. The views of the rest, who do not tweet or demonstrate, were ignored. Clearly, in this case, parliament was also being ignored.
It is important that justice should be delivered to Shafqat Hussain. But why is an issue being made about his age? Wasn’t the judge, who presided over his trial, able to figure out whether Shafqat Hussain was under-age or not going by his appearance? Are we now going to challenge the justice system itself? A mockery is being made of our courts, the lawyers and the president of Pakistan himself.
M Akram Niazi
Published in The Express Tribune, March 20th, 2015.
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