ISLAMABAD: A five-judge bench of the Supreme Court will hear on March 30 a review petition instituted by mentally unstable death-row prisoners.

The larger bench will be headed by Justice Manzoor Ahmad Malik and will include Justice Sardar Tariq Masood, Justice Ijaz-ul-Ahsan, Justice Mazhar Alam Khan Miankhel and Justice Mansoor Ali Shah.

Earlier, the review petitions were filed by Imdad Ali and Kanizan Bibi.

On Oct 23, 2018, the Supreme Court had ordered a medical board of renowned psychiatrists to re-examine death-row inmate Imdad Ali — a patient of paranoid schizophrenia — to determine since how long the convict was suffering from the disorder.

“This is a delicate matter and affects future since the State has to ensure that every convict awarded capital punishment should not be suffering... [from] any physical or mental health [condition] rather he should be normal,” Justice Manzoor Ahmad Malik had observed while heading the five-judge Supreme Court bench that had taken up review petitions on part of the inspector general (prisons) Punjab and Safia Bano, wife of Imdad Ali, seeking review of the death sentence awarded to 50-year-old Imdad Ali. A separate case of Kanizan Bibi was also fixed before the court.

Justice Manzoor says state has to ensure no death-row convict should suffer from any physical or mental health issue

Kanizan Bibi had approached the Supreme Court with a pleading that she was also suffering from the same disease — schizophrenia.

She was facing the allegation of killing two sons of her paramour Khan Mohammad — a father of five children — in July 1989 in tehsil Kamalia. On the incitement of Kanizan Bibi coupled with a marriage proposal, Khan Mohammad had also killed his wife and three daughters.

Earlier, the court had held that it had to decide whether the execution of an inmate would remain relevant if the convict had developed the disease two years before his execution date.

Similarly, in November 2017, an SC bench headed by then chief justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali had ordered the constitution of a three-member medical board of renowned psychiatrists to thoroughly examine Ali and submit its findings after complete medical assessment of the patient.

The same bench had on Oct 31, 2017 stayed the execution of Imdad Ali by suspending the second black warrants issued for his execution. The president had rejected his mercy petition on Nov 17, 2015.

Safia Bano had moved against the Aug 23, 2016 judgement of the Lahore High Court’s Multan bench upholding the death sentence awarded by a trial court.

In its order, the Supreme Court had ruled that mental sickness like schizophrenia did not make irrelevant the death sentence because such psychiatric disorder was not a permanent disease and curable with proper treatment.

“Schizophrenia is not a permanent mental disorder, rather imbalance, increasing or decreasing depending upon the level of stress,” the Supreme Court had held, adding that in recent years the prognosis of ailments like schizophrenia had been improved with drugs by vigorous psychological and social managements and rehabilitation.

In his review petition, the Punjab inspector general of police had pleaded that the court judgement had placed fetters on the definition of schizophrenia contrary to the universally accepted medical definition in terms of ‘mental disorder’ as envisaged by the Mental Health Ordinance 2001, Punjab.

Across the medical jurisprudence, paranoid schizophrenia is classified as a chronic and permanent mental disorder affecting cognitive functions and with poor prognosis, the review petition argued, adding that patients’ jail medical records reflected that he had consistently displayed symptoms of schizophrenia and was not showing signs of improvement thus have active psychotic symptoms.

Moreover, Islamic Sharia prohibits execution of a mentally challenged prisoner, the petition said, adding that this view was endorsed by Islamic jurisprudent Allama Ibne Abideen in his celebrated work, Radd-al-Mukhtarala al-Dur al-Mukhtar.

Safia Bano had in her review petition pleaded that the medical records reflected that Ali had consistently displayed symptoms of schizophrenia he was diagnosed in prison, hence was subject to the relevant procedures under the Pakistan Prison Rules 1978 that asks for transfer of such patients to a mental hospital.

Imdad Ali and Kanizan Bibi, mentally unstable condemned prisoners, are confined in the Vehari District Jail and the Punjab Institute of Mental Health, Lahore, respectively. They were later shifted to the Rawalpindi Central Jail for examination by the medical board in compliance with the apex court’s Oct 23, 2018 order.

Published in Dawn, March 13th, 2020