Protecting witnesses

In a landmark event on September 18, the Sindh Assembly unanimously passed the Sindh Witness Protection Bill 2013, and in doing so gave a lead to every other province in the country. The failure to protect witnesses in virtually every type of case that comes before the courts is a leading reason for the failure of so many cases. Witnesses are intimidated or persuaded to recant their evidence or produce conflicting accounts of events — which leave the courts and judges with little option but to acquit the defendant. People who have committed the most heinous of crimes walk free and are able to offend again because the state failed to offer the protection that was obviously needed.

Henceforward not only the witnesses will be protected but their families also, as it was often by threatening a family that a witness was forced into changing his/her story. They will be able to conceal their identity, employ voice-altering technologies and give their evidence via video link. Relocation to a place that is secure will now be an option, and the Bill creates the legal architecture that has the potential to be a game-changer.

Other provinces need to consider enacting similar legislation particularly in light of the amendments to the Anti-Terrorism Bill passed by the Federal Cabinet on September 20th, which needs ratification by parliament to become law. It also contains clauses which detail the methods by which witnesses may be protected. It would be of benefit if there was a harmonisation of witness-protection legislation at federal and provincial levels in order that loopholes in the law may be permanently closed. There are frequent allegations of the police and even some elements within the judiciary being complicit in the failure of trials because of interference with witnesses, and it is going to take a systemic change in the entire justice system for the new legislation to be effective and there will be those that resist it, not least the criminals, but the Sindh Witness Protection Bill is a significant step in the right direction.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 24^th,  2013.

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