Daily Times

LAHORE: The Lahore High Court on Tuesday directed the Home Department to conduct and conclude investigation into the case of condemned
prisoner Muhammad
Iqbal, a juvenile offender who has been on death row for 19 years.

The court stated that the investigation must determine within a fortnight if Iqbal could be granted the remission that he was entitled to as a juvenile offender under Pakistan’s laws.

Iqbal was just 17 years old when he was convicted of a fatal shooting in Mandi Bahauddin in 1999, and sentenced to death. Suspecting he was a juvenile, the prosecution requested that an ossification test be conducted, the results of which confirmed his minority. This was recognised by the trial court in its judgement that stated: “The age of the accused at the time of the occurrence appears to be less than 18 years.”

Following Iqbal’s death sentence, the government of Pakistan enacted the Juvenile Justice System Ordinance, 2000, which prohibited the death penalty for all juvenile offenders. A presidential notification granted all juveniles, like Iqbal, automatic remission of their sentences on the basis of an age determination inquiry. Iqbal was listed as one of the prisoners that would benefit from the notification. Despite this, his mercy petition was rejected in March 2016 and he had been languishing on death row for well over half his life.

The National Commission on Human Rights had issued a directive to the Home Department to stay his execution and conduct an investigation into his eligibility for remission in July last year. The results from the investigation are eight months overdue.

A divisional bench of the LHC, comprising Justice Sadaqat Ali Khan and Justice Shehram Sarwar, issued the direction while hearing the petition filed by Justice Project Pakistan on behalf of Muhammad Iqbal.

The writ petition asked the court to direct the Home Department to submit the findings of the investigation in line with the presidential notification and NCHR’s directive. It argued that Iqbal was overwhelmingly qualified for remission under the notification.

Jail authorities had forwarded requests to issue his ‘black warrant’ to the Lahore High Court on June 30 last year, but withdrew them after the NCHR took up Iqbal’s case.

The UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial had also written a letter to the Pakistan government, expressing that Iqbal’s sentence was in contravention of international human rights law.

“Iqbal suffered all these years because the government and its departments failed to do what is right and what is just,” said Abbas, the brother of Iqbal.

According to JPP Executive Director Sarah Belal, “Iqbal’s death sentence is incompatible with both Pakistan’s domestic laws and international legal commitments. The state has repeatedly issued his warrants of execution twice in the last year alone, despite being patently aware of his juvenility. We are hopeful that the LHC’s directive will be complied with, so that Iqbal may be provided the relief he has been entitled to.”

Published in Daily Times, March 7^th 2018.