SC commutes death sentences of mentally disabled inmates

LAHORE: Two mentally disabled prisoners on death row had their sentences commuted by the Supreme Court on Wednesday in what activists called a landmark judgment on mental illness.

The court ordered Kanizan Bibi and Imdad Ali to be transferred to a mental health facility, and asked for the case of a third inmate facing execution to be reviewed. It also called for the establishment of a medical board to vet inmates for mental illness in capital cases.

“We hold that if a condemned prisoner, due to mental illness, is found to be unable to comprehend the rationale and reason behind his/her punishment, then carrying out the death sentence will not meet the ends of justice,” said the Supreme Court in its ruling.

The decision was hailed by legal activists who have been lobbying the courts for years to address the issue. “We hope the guidelines... will permeate to all levels of the judiciary and prison staff so that mental illnesses can be detected and treated instead of being ignored and denied,” said Ali Haider Habib, spokesman for the Justice Project Pakistan (JPP), a legal nonprofit organisation representing the three inmates.

Bibi was 16 and a housemaid when she was sentenced to death in 1991 after being found guilty of murdering a wealthy woman and her five children. Her family long claimed that she was brutally tortured and forced to confess, and she has not spoken in years due to severe mental health issues.

Ali, meanwhile, was sentenced to death for the murder of a religious cleric in 2002, but diagnosed with schizophrenia while in prison in 2012.