On death row

Pakistan remains on the dwindling list of countries, which still retain death penalty for a wide range of offences.

The news that a moratorium on death penalties, in place since 2008, is to be ended by the new government is not good news. President Asif Ali Zardari, due to step down in August, had signed the moratorium in 2008, soon after his election. Since then, there had been no hangings, except for that of a soldier tried by a military court. The presidential moratorium ended in June, and according to an interior ministry spokesman, is not to be renewed. In prisons across the country, bodies may soon swing from nooses again, with the government stating that 450 cases are to be decided “on merit”.

The phraseology is interesting. The question we should ask is if there is any “merit” at all in the manner cases are decided and trials held. We all know that in our criminal justice system, the chances of a miscarriage of justice taking place are huge — both due to the inadequacies of police investigations and the factors involved in the trial itself. Most of those sentenced to death are poor — unable to hire savvy lawyers or take advantage of the country’s controversial Qisas and Diyat law, as the rich so often do.

The risk posed to over 8,000 people currently on death row by the latest decision has been pointed to by the London-based rights group Amnesty International, which has expressed grave concern and sought an extension of the moratorium on capital punishment. This does not seem likely to happen; the statement from the interior ministry on the matter seems unequivocal.

The death penalty issue is one we need to discuss in depth. Pakistan remains on the dwindling list of countries, which still retain the death penalty for a wide range of offences.The inhumanity of capital punishment, notably in a system where justice is inaccessible to many and “errors” very likely, is something we cannot afford to ignore.

The decision to end the moratorium needs to be re-considered and a debate generated on the criminal justice system, the main feature of which should be reform rather than retribution. At present, we are a long way away from this ideal.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 6^th, 2013.

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