KARACHI, Dec 24: A former judge of the Supreme Court, Justice Nasir Aslam Zahid, believes that Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's case can be reopened and held that in a split judgment there should not have been a death penalty.
Justice Zahid was responding to a question at a weekly lecture on ‘Condition of Under-trial ladies and women prisoners’ at the People’s Secretariat on Saturday.
The lecture was organised by the PPP.
Justice Zahid recalled that three judges had given a dissenting verdict while Justice Nasim Hassan Shah had later stated that a lot of pressure was brought on him to agree with those who found Mr Bhutto guilty. He pointed out that any case could be reopened if the lawyers had sufficient ground and material.
Provincial chief of the PPP Syed Qaim Ali Shah chaired the event.
Justice Nasir Aslam, an ex-judge of the Supreme Court, said as the jail system and the judicial system were intertwined, no improvement in prisoners’ conditions could be brought about without improving the judicial system and the investigative and prosecution arms of the police.
He said the Hudood Ordinance had caused unlimited and misery to poor women. Describing the new law as highly deficient, he called for the total repeal of the Hudood Ordinance.
Justice Nasir Aslam said that more than 1.4 million cases were pending in courts across the country. In the USA there were 100 judges for every one million people while in Pakistan the number of judges for every one million people was just 10. The total number of judges of all levels in Pakistan was less than 2,000 for a population of over 160 million, Justice Zahid said.
The selection process for sending of prisoners to courts on a particular day was rife with bribery, the former judge said.
On the other hand, he said the investigation and prosecution system of the police was so defective that 95 per cent of criminals go scot-free because of lack of evidence and non-production of witnesses. In England, Justice Nasir added, the investigation and the prosecution systems were so efficient that 93 per cent of those produced before the courts were convicted.
The former judge also briefed the audience about the work done by his own organisation, which he founded after he had refused to take oath under the PCO as Supreme Court judge, Justice Nasir Aslam said that the number of detained women in Karachi’s women’s jail had come down to a mere 114 from 400 after his organisation started working. The organisation now had 15 lawyers with it. Bail was furnished for more than 100 women prisoners who were in custody even after bail orders. About 80 foreigners were provided tickets to fly back home. Many had been released after granted of bail on personal bonds.
