Senate body opposes public executions for capital offences

ISLAMABAD: The Senate’s Standing Committee on Human Rights, by a majority of the members present, opposed any statutory amendments that call for public execution for capital offences.

The committee, which met with Senator Walid Iqbal at the Parliament House, resolved, by a majority vote, that given the fundamental rights guaranteed by the Constitution – as interpreted by superior courts – and all of Pakistan’s applicable laws, any statutory amendments calling for public executions involving capital offences be opposed, and also appealed to the House to reject any such proposed amendments should they come up on its legislative agenda.

Two of the Senators present, Dr Mehr Taj Roghani and Dr Humayun Mohmand, expressed their disagreement by asserting that the committee had decided upon the matter in a haste without accessing any proper research and information on the possible deterrent effects of public executions.

The committee received detailed briefings on the subject of public executions from the Secretary, Ministry of Human Rights, and the Secretary, National Commission for Human Rights.

The briefings highlighted a judgment passed by the Supreme Court of Pakistan in 1994 that had declared public executions to be contrary to the inviolability of human dignity as guaranteed by the Constitution of Pakistan, a position that was followed by the Lahore High Court in 2018 while disallowing the public execution of the rapist and murderer convicted in the infamous Zainab Case.

The committee was also apprised of a decision of the Federal Shariat Court where the matter of upholding human dignity was endorsed in the light of Quranic teachings.

The briefings additionally underscored various international conventions that Pakistan had ratified and made part of domestic law, most notably the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which prohibit public executions as cruel and inhuman, and also emphasized that according to global research and empirical evidence, public executions serve to brutalize society as opposed to having a deterrent effect, pointing out, in the case of Pakistan, that in the year immediately following the execution of Zainab’s murderer, there was a 33% increase in rape cases.

The Secretary, Ministry of Human Rights, also briefed the committee on various aspects of the “Bangkok Rules”, stressing on gender sensitivities involved as far as under-trial and convicted prisoners are concerned, but explained that the rules are non-binding in nature due the manner and circumstances in which they were issued.

The committee deferred discussion on the state of implementation of the rules in Pakistan to a subsequent meeting where Chairperson of the National Commission on the Status of Women would be in attendance, and also directed representatives of the Commission to collect and bring with them some additional data and information on the subject from all of Pakistan’s provinces.

The meeting was attended by Senators Dr. Mehr Taj Roghani, Dr. Mohammad Humayun Mohmand, Kamran Micheal, Mushahid Hussain Sayed and Syed Waqar Mehdi. Senior officials from attached departments were also present.