Miscarriage of justice

The Supreme Court has righted a case of miscarriage of justice as it has set free a 75-year-old woman who had earlier been sentenced to life imprisonment for dealing with drugs. The woman, Sakina Ramazan, spent seven years in prison on wrongful conviction. A special court for the control of narcotics substances had awarded her life in jail in 2014.

The woman, a widow and resident of Quetta, worked as a domestic servant in the same city, before Customs officials arrested her in Karachi for carrying drugs. Her employer had sent her to Karachi with electronic items to deliver them to a man, and she was told that these goods were meant as dowry to be given away in a marriage. However, when these items were checked upon Ramazan’s arrival in Karachi, Customs officials claimed to have found hashish concealed inside them. She was arrested on a charge of carrying 40kgs of hashish, and trial of the case was carried out by a special court for the control of narcotic substances that sentenced her to life imprisonment. She was lodged in the Karachi Central Jail since Feb 28, 2014. Her conviction was challenged in the Sindh High Court, which upheld the trial court’s decision and maintained the sentence. Later, she moved a petition before the Supreme Court seeking quashing of her conviction. After examining all the evidence presented by the prosecution, the apex court found them unsatisfactory. The highest court quashed the old woman’s conviction for want of evidence and ordered her release.

This innocent woman spent seven years in prison for no fault of her. She suffered ignominy, mental agony as well as distress and physical discomfort for all these years. Every year cases of miscarriage of justice are reported. Considering all this, jurists have long been pointing out that the country’s justice system is flawed and there is an urgent need to reform the system. Here one cannot help paraphrasing Charles Dickens, courts of law are not courts of justice.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 19^th, 2021.

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