Home Dept issues SOPs for remission in sentence to prisoners

LAHORE:On the directions of Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz, a remarkable progress has been made on the prison reforms agenda.

The Punjab Home Department has issued the standard operating procedure (SOPs) and criteria for prisoners’ remission cases. According to the spokesperson for the Punjab Home Department, remission refers to a system under which a prisoner is eligible for release before completing his sentence. There are five categories of remission in prison, laboaur, good conduct, education, donating blood and special remissions. According to the notification issued by the home department Punjab, a good character and conduct means that the prisoner is serving his/her sentence in accordance with the prison rules. A prisoner with good conduct will get 15 days on completion of one year of imprisonment with labour and 15 days on completion of three years with labour along with an additional 30 days. Similarly, prisoners who have improved their educational qualifications during captivity will get remission in their punishment according to the scale. Prisoners who do Matriculation, Intermediate, Graduation or Masters during imprisonment will get six months to 10 months’ remission.

The notification stipulates that after receiving the result card of the examination, the Superintendent of Jails will forward the remission case within seven days and the DIG Jails in another three days. Similarly, IG Prisons will have to issue notification of remission of sentence on the basis of educational qualification in the second decade of every month. The IG Prisons will send a certificate to the Home Department every month that there are no pending cases of remission. The third category of remission is the special remission. The amnesty granted by the competent authority on different festivals is called special remission. According to the Prison rules, the Superintendent Jail can grant 30 days, IG Jail 60 days, Home Secretary 90 days and the federal government can grant special remission for 60 days. A remission issued by the President of Pakistan takes precedence over all laws under Article 45 of the Constitution of Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Prisoners who donate blood are also entitled to remissions.

According to prison rules, a convicted prisoner is entitled to a 30-day remission for donating blood. A gap of at least six months is required between two blood donations. A prisoner serving a sentence of more than five years can donate blood up to four times.

Similarly, imprisonment with labour is also entitled to remission. According to the Prison rules, prisoners sentenced for less than four months of imprisonment with labour will not be entitled to remission. Prisoners whose sentence changed from death sentence to life imprisonment will be granted remission as per minimum scale. Remission for labour will be granted four times in a year, for three months each time and will be registered on the same day. The notification has made it clear that those convicted of terrorism, sabotage and anti-state activities will not be entitled to any remission. Similarly, if the prisoner has to serve even one day extra sentence due to delay in registration of remission, action will be taken under PEEDA against Jail Superintendent and Deputy Superintendent Judicial.

The Deputy Superintendent Judicial concerned will be responsible for the timely entries in the remission sheet and Prison Information Management System in all cases. Punjab Home Secretary Noor Ul Amin Mengal has directed strict implementation of the SOPs so that all the prisoners can be released in time and no prisoner has to spend even a moment extract in prison.