HRCP Calls For Wider National Debate On Death Penalty

ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 10th Oct, 2022 ) :The participants of a discussion here at the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) on Monday called for revisiting the death penalty keeping in view its little relevance to deterrence, a likelihood of miscarriage of justice and its irreversibility.

They also called for a wider, rational and national debate on the death penalty involving all strata of society, including scholars, jurists, academia, civil society and human rights defenders.

The discussion was organized in connection with the International Day against Death Penalty, observed throughout the world on October 10 every year, an HRCP press release said.

Pakistan Peoples Party leader Farhatullah Babar, in his talk, observed that there was a danger of inflicting an irreversible punishment on an innocent person in a criminal justice system like that of Pakistan.

"Two brothers, who had spent eight years on death row, were finally acquitted by the Supreme Court in October 2016 only to find that they had already been hanged a year before," he cited an example to expose flaws in the country's criminal justice system.

He said there were 33 offences that were punishable with death under various laws in Pakistan. Many of the accused given death penalty for offences that were ineligible for capital punishment under international law, he claimed.

The PPP leader said the Holy Quran stressed mercy and forgiveness instead of retribution. "At a conference in Amman in 2017 an Egyptian scholar remarked that the Quranic injunction (2:179) "in just retribution there is life for you" was a subtle suggestion that ' qisas' was protection and advancement of life of society and not revenge." He called for protecting basic rights in death penalty cases including right to proper defence, protection against torture, sparing juveniles and mentally challenged people from execution, providing legal services to migrant Pakistani workers sentenced to death and simplifying procedure for mercy petitions.

"The deepening of the meaning of right to life, the raising of the bar of human dignity by due process requirements and Quranic stress on forgiveness calls for a wider public debate and ijtehad on executions," he noted.

It was stressed that the juveniles on death row and those with mental illnesses and physical disabilities should be spared from executions and the number of offences carrying death penalty needed to be reviewed.

Farhatullah Babar said another important issue pertained to confessions extracted from suspects under torture. Pakistan had signed and ratified the Convention Against torture (CAT) but still not legislated anti torture law, he added and called for early anti-torture legislation.