• Justice Minallah admits judiciary at fault when appeals exceed reasonable timeframe
• Regrets how petition by death row prisoner received first hearing seven years after it was filed
• Criticises abysmal conditions in overcrowded prisons across the country

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court on Wednesday expressed regret over the inordinate delays plaguing the country’s criminal justice system, warning that such inefficiencies are eroding public confidence in the judiciary and amount to a form of “unauthorised punishment”.

In a detailed judgement, Justice Athar Minallah called for the urgent completion of appeal processes and said the abysmal conditions in overcrowded prisons across the country add to the unimaginable suffering of prisoners — especially those on death row. These conditions become “a form of unauthorised punishment not intended by the legislature”, he wrote.

He emphasised that it was the constitutional duty of every organ of the state — the executive, the judiciary and the legislature — to take urgent steps for ensuring that the criminal justice system serves the people of this country and they repose their trust and confidence in its fairness, impartiality and independence.

Justice Minallah presided over a three-member bench hearing the appeal of Tahir alias Tahri, who had challenged a 2014 Lahore High Court (LHC) decision upholding his conviction and death sentence for the murder of five individuals.

Justice Minallah observed that a weak and compromised criminal justice system undermines the rule of law and thus encourages corruption, authoritarianism and the rule of the powerful and privileged instead. “An effective and responsive criminal justice system, free from political interference and corruption, is a fundamental right of every citizen, while inexpensive and expeditious justice is a commitment of the state under the Constitution,” he wrote.

He conceded that judiciary was also responsible when the process of appeal exceeds the necessary and reasonable time required for its completion, but other branches of the state — the executive and legislature — were equally responsible for ensuring that the conditions in the prisons were humane and that the treatment of prisoners was not cruel, inhumane and degrading.

In the case at hand, Justice Minallah regretted that the appellant was sentenced to death by the trial court on Sept 3, 2008, and the appeal was preferred within time. The LHC decided the appeal on Sept 18, 2014, and the reference was answered in the affirmative, and thus, the sentence of death was confirmed.

But there was a six-year delay in deciding the appeal of a prisoner who has been handed down a death sentence, which cannot be justified when the necessary time for taking up the appeal and its ultimate disposal should not have been more than a year, Justice Minallah bemoaned.

The appellant had then sought leave by filing a petition before the Supreme Court, and the necessary and reasonable time required for its final disposal should not have been more than 12 months, he wrote.

The petition, which was filed in 2014, was fixed for hearing for the first time after seven years — on March 22, 2021 — and finally on Jan 29, 2025. It took more than 17 years to complete the appeal process from the date when the death sentence was handed down, the judgement regretted.

Throughout this time, the prisoner remained in a death cell, despite having no role in the delay nor any control over the procedural hurdles. Justice Minallah said such delays grossly exceed the “necessary and reasonable” time that should be required for appellate procedures.

Published in Dawn, July 4th, 2025