In a nine-page judgment authored by Justice Jamal Khan Mandokhail, the court highlighted the prolonged and often inhumane conditions faced by death row inmates, noting that many prisoners remain in death cells for years, sometimes even decades, due to delays in the judicial process and subsequent execution of sentences.
The ruling came during the hearing of a criminal review petition filed by Ghulam Shabbir, a convict who has been imprisoned for 34 years, that included 24 years spent in a death cell.
The Supreme Court partly allowed the review petition, converting Shabbir’s death sentence to life imprisonment, citing the prolonged delay as a factor that should not lead to double punishment.
Justice Mandokhail emphasised that the delays in executing death sentences effectively punish convicts twice for the same crime, which is neither permissible under Pakistani law nor under the injunctions of Islam.
The court also referenced international standards, including the United Nations’ Nelson Mandela Rules, which state that the conditions of imprisonment should not serve as additional punishment.
The judgment further called on the government to update outdated prison laws and ensure that they are implemented in a manner that respects the fundamental rights of all prisoners, particularly those on death row. In view of the judgment, convicted person Ghulam Shabbir will be released from jail after 34 years of imprisonment as he completed his life sentence.
LONDON/NEW YORK: The New York based attorney and General Counsel of pro-Khalistan group Sikhs for…
Israel's Mossad spy agency planted explosives inside 5,000 pagers imported by Lebanese group Hezbollah months…
It was an incredible weekend in Pakistani politics only to end on an anticlimactic note.…
We have apparently a democracy in the country with elected institutions that include the executive,…
‘For the powerful, crimes are those that others commit,’ Noam Chomsky once remarked, highlighting a…
Leave a Comment