LAHORE: Jail authorities across the country are giving remissions to thousands of murder, hurt and rape convicts which sources dealing with the subject say are in violation of law and orders by the Federal Shariat Court and the Supreme Court of Pakistan.

Sources dealing with the subject told Dawn that the number of the convicts of these crimes taking benefit of the illegal remissions ran into thousands across the country.

Also read: What denies convicts compromise opportunity

Punjab Prisons Department officials when contacted clarified that such prisoners were not being given any special remission (announced by the government on special occasions like Eidul Fitr for all convicts) for the past five or six years. But they were being given ordinary remissions like for their labour.

Sources, however, said that under the law and the court judgments no remission could be given to the convicts of murder, hurt and rape. There was no classification of remission and classifying it was unlawful, they claimed.

Rape victim, heirs of the murdered can pardon convicts

To support their claim they said the Federal Shariat Court had in 1988 declared certain provisions in the PPC and CrPC relating to murder and hurt repugnant to Islam.

The decision was challenged in the Supreme Court which rejected the appeal in 1989, upholding the Shariat Court’s verdict.

In consequence, the government amended in 1991 CrPC’s sections 337, 338, 339, declaring it the right of the heirs of a murdered person and a hurt person to pardon the co-accused of the crime to allow him to turn hostile against the principal accused. Previously this authority lay with the courts.

Section 345 of the CrPC was amended to make body-related crime like murder and hurt compoundable offences, giving the right to pardon murder convicts till before their execution to the heirs of the murdered.

Nature of body-related crimes as prescribed by Islamic Law was mentioned in detail in Chapter 16 of the PPC. The chapter was devoid of such details in its previous form.

Section 402-C was also added to the CrPC declaring that the government could not give remission to the convicts in murder and body hurt cases, giving this right to the heirs of a murdered person or the injured one.

In 2011, Section 402-D was inserted in the CrPC to also disallow the government to give remission to the convicts of rape cases. This right too was given to the victim.

Sources said that the jail authorities which work under the provincial governments had not amended the Jail Manual and the Pakistan Rules accordingly. The laws did not specify the nature of remission that could be given or denied by the jail authorities. Therefore, no remission, general or ordinary could be given to convicts of such crime, they argued.

Published in Dawn, May 19th, 2015

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