Equivocal justice

The Tayyaba child maid torture case has not reached a conclusion but is considerably further down that road with the conviction of an additional sessions court judge and his wife for willfully neglecting and harming Tayyaba. They were sentenced to a year in prison and a fine of Rs50,000 each, a paltry sum. Within hours of the announcement, the Islamabad High Court (IHC) announced that bail had been granted, effectively suspending the sentence pending an appeal against the conviction.

By any standards this is a landmark case and the finding of guilt a historic decision, but the finding of guilt was on lesser charges and the judge probably had little choice in the matter given the poor quality of evidence that was submitted by the prosecution. Indeed in the opinion of an activist closely connected to the case the judge is to be commended as he would have doubtless been under considerable pressure from several quarters, not least among them being the legal fraternity and the police, to find in favour of the accused.

From the outset a case triggered by the concerns for Tayyaba by neighbours who reported her ill-treatment has been about the protection of the accused rather than the protection of the victim. The waters have been muddied, Tayyaba’s parents pulled hither and thither, evidence collection and witness statements have been poorly taken and in the end the prosecution case was so threadbare — intentionally so — that there was never a real possibility of the major charges producing a conviction.

Tayyaba is a child who has been cruelly abused. The pictures of her injuries that circulated on social media were horrific and not, as some have tried to claim, self-inflicted. But she is a child of a poor family without power or influence and just one of thousands of children in illegal domestic service. Were it not for some determined and persistent action by elements of civil society the case would have been buried and faded from view. Today bail has been granted but the conviction of the two accused still stands. Justice for Tayyaba is partial and equivocal, and the guilty walk the streets.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 18^th, 2018.

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