Daily Times

Revenge has no place in law. The reason, not revenge, should be the guide to a punishment. With most violent crimes in Pakistan, the media coverage mostly focuses on the victims as if the media is the judge and the jury, and the task to prove the accused guilty lies with them. Isn’t the criminal law based on the notion of innocent until proven guilty? Yet this is understandable to a certain degree, but the natural propensity of the victims to the severity of punishment, and taking into account Pakistan’s crumbling justice system, risks injustice.

Retributivism is a theory of punishment, which holds that the best response to a crime is a punishment proportional to the offence, inflicted because the offender deserves it. Prevention of future crimes (deterrence) or rehabilitation of the offender is not to be considered in determining punishments.

For individuals who believe in the theory hold that when an offender breaks the law, justice requires that he or she suffers in return. They maintain that retribution is different from revenge because retributive justice is only directed at wrongs, has inherent limits, is not personal, involves no pleasure at the suffering of others, and employs procedural standards.

If the prison is a correctional facility, and the incarcerated are put behind the bars for them to be given a certain chance in the future, why are those who serve the prison sentence — imposed on them by the laws of the land — not given a fair standing?

There have been way too many cases of revenge where the masses at large have decided to take the law into their own hands. The ‘rule of the mob’ and ‘lynch law’ have no justification in today’s society. We have a constitution, and a set of rules legislated by the parliament to follow. It’s another discussion to justify the extent to which the laws promulgated by the parliament are ‘just’ or ‘unjust. ’

Media coverage is concentrated on the horrific experiences of the victims. An individual — the alleged accused — could have been wrongly set up by the opposing parties. It could have been someone, somewhere at the wrong place and time. To assume an individual guilty, just because others have formed that opinion of the accused, is downright demeaning and unjust on the part of the masses at large. And then to escalate the situation and follow suit of a few criminals within the mob, and to lynch and assault the alleged accused — making a court of justice on the streets — has become a norm in our society.

There are always two sides to a story. The alleged accused and the opposing party could have a personal vendetta to resolve. The accused — not being able to muster enough strength in the form of gathering enough support — could be wrongly dealt with, in many instances losing their lives to the mobs at large. With the loss of the alleged accused’s life on the streets, no justified trial can take place, and due to the extremely adversarial nature of the criminal justice system, justice is denied to the accused and their relatives.

In another instance, when an offender is released from a prison sentence, he is still blamed for the alleged wrong he committed, and the police and the victims continue to blame him, even though, in law, the convicted man is eligible for parole and his incarceration is no longer necessary. The public perception rarely changes about the ex-offender, and he has to live with the notion of being judged for the remainder of his lifetime.

This all raises the vexed question: ‘what are the prisons for and what relationship do they have with dispensing justice?’ There is a confusion about the rationale, revenge, rehabilitation and retaliation. If the prison is a correctional facility, and the incarcerated are put behind the bars for them to be given a certain chance in the future — to become a part of the law — abiding society at large — why are those who serve the prison sentence — imposed on them by the laws of the land-not given a fair standing? Why are they still looked down upon and not allowed to live their lives according to their ambitions and aspirations?

The writer is a corporate lawyer and an alumnus of SOAS, University of London. He can be reached at sami@samishahpartners.com

Published in Daily Times, February 6^th 2018.