Reinstate the moratorium

On the morning of December 18, Amnesty International broke news about Pakistan and the death penalty that set the country’s social media alight. Only this time the disbelief accompanying the news was celebratory because for the first time Pakistan had – during the plenary session of the UNGA – voted in favour of a resolution calling for a moratorium on executions.

The news that Pakistan had reversed a decade-long policy was doubly significant because it came on the heels of the fourth anniversary of the APS attack that had resulted in the previous moratorium on the death penalty being lifted. This seemed to signal a bold new direction for Pakistan, vindicating the work of human rights activists who have tirelessly documented the highly flawed capital punishment practices that make executions inherently unjust. It seemed too good to be true, and soon it turned out that it was. The Foreign Office weighed in after a while and threw cold water on the whole thing.

While we are getting used to the unsettling phenomenon of frequent policy ‘U-Turns’, the FO’s repudiation was borne out of something even more tragicomic. The FO spokesperson claimed that the UN had made a mistake in tallying the vote, but those in the know say that if there was a mistake, it must have been the Pakistani delegation that pressed the wrong button.

The upshot is that the status quo was maintained and Pakistan remains firmly opposed to putting a halt on executions. That makes Pakistan one of 35 countries – out of 193 – in the UN, an increasingly isolated group going against an inevitable global tide.

There were reasons to be excited about this ‘fake news’ for capital punishment in Pakistan is inhumane and irreversible as it does not allow for a chance to remedy mistakes. Since 2014, Pakistan has executed 500 people. As Justice Project Pakistan’s ‘Counting the Condemned’ revealed, a special Supreme Court bench found that in over 85 percent of capital punishment cases the death penalty was erroneously given. And, while stories of wrongful executions are plentiful, the case of the Bahawalpur Brothers, who were acquitted by the Supreme Court one year after their execution, brutally symbolises the rot at the core of this practice.

Even though Pakistan has made this unfortunate but expected statement on the global stage, the government of Naya Pakistan should take inspiration from Purana Pakistan and reinstate a moratorium on executions – and do it better.

The PPP government had placed an unofficial moratorium on the death penalty in 2008, making it one of their achievements. However, there was a structural problem in the way it was carried out. Rather than bringing about any institutional reform, the presidency simply refused to sign off on executions - the finale stage in Pakistan’s capital punishment assembly line - while the death row kept on ballooning.

This short-sighted approach towards addressing the death penalty problem meant that when in March 2015, under the orders of then interior minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, executions were reinstated for all death-row convicts (rather than only for terrorists as previously stated) over 300 people were hanged in the next nine months. The six-year moratorium was undone in one fell swoop, with 2015 being the deadliest year with respect to executions in the history of Pakistan.

The tale of the contrasting paths taken by governments underscores the arbitrary and capricious nature of policies governing the death penalty. We can see a story of a single man taking a decision impacting thousands of people on death row.

The PTI government has a chance to take a more proactive and permanent role in getting rid of these unjust and cruel practices. A moratorium must be placed immediately, so the government can take the lead on understanding the many abuses inherent in the system and address them without putting more vulnerable lives at risk.

As ‘Counting the Condemned’ revealed, Pakistan’s lower courts are particularly problematic as they sentence people to death at the rate of one person a day. This happens despite nearly every single murder investigation and prosecution case being tainted by false evidence and forced confessions.

Hence any successful moratorium on the death penalty needs to address the problem of over sentencing. Short of stopping death sentences altogether during the duration of the proposed moratorium, the scope of the death penalty must be greatly reduced to the ‘most serious crime’ standard while guilt and sentencing phases of trials should also be bifurcated to reduce the number of condemned prisoners being added to the death row on a daily basis.

The writer is an instructor of sociology and a researcher who works on human rights issues. Twitter: @daniyalyos