Death penalty vote

FO spokesperson issues a clarification that Pakistan had not voted in favour of the UN resolution


Editorial December 20, 2018

A short-lived feeling of relief was crushed by the Foreign Office on Monday as its spokesperson issued a clarification that Pakistan had not voted in favour of a UN resolution calling for a moratorium on the death penalty. Instead, he spoke of Pakistan’s ‘consistent policy’ of sending people to the gallows. What he did not speak of was how many of them turn out to be innocent, and the state’s lack of remorse at this.

The spokesperson also ignored that the ‘consistent policy’ had been on hold for the better part of a decade and without any real complaints. That is, until the APS attack, when the state gave in to public pressure demanding blood for blood. At the time, it was believed that the death penalty would only be enforced in cases of terrorism, and not the plethora of other crimes. But that soon came to pass, and Pakistan began making up for lost time by hanging over 500 people in the next four years, possibly some innocent persons. Take the case of two brothers from Bahawalpur who were acquitted by a three-member bench of the Supreme Court In 2016. When word of their acquittals reached Bahawalpur Central Jail, the prison authorities informed the court they had already been hanged a year earlier.

The fact of the matter is that 85 per cent of death sentences appealed in the Supreme Court have been overturned, raising questions about the quality of the lower court convictions. Thousands of people are languishing on death row right now, even though research has shown that the death penalty does not reduce crime rates. There is a legal maxim called Blackstone’s ratio, which goes, “It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.” Unfortunately, as people in the ex-Fata areas and even in many settled areas will tell you, law-enforcement authorities have no qualms about using collective punishment whenever the opportunity arises, leaving many to suffer in jail for relatively minor crimes.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 20th, 2018.

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