PESHAWAR, March 30: The inherent flaws in the Qisas and Diyat law are benefiting the accused in honour-related murder cases and they are either acquitted or awarded nominal sentences by the courts concerned, legal experts say.

Lawyers dealing with the criminal cases believed that unless amendments were made to the qisas and diyat law by the federal government the issue could not be tackled properly.

Although the NWFP government has announced that honour-related murders would be considered intentional killings, the lawyers believe that certain provisions in the law, especially the section 306, 308, 309 and 310, help the accused. The provincial government cannot achieve the desired objective till these provisions are struck down, they say.

Moreover, the attitude of the trial and appellate courts are often tilted in favour of the accused in such cases, and they are given the benefit on the grounds of “grave and sudden provocation,” which is nowhere in the law.

Initially, through the Qisas and Diyat Ordinance, about 40 sections of the Chapter XVI of the Pakistan Penal Code, 1860, dealing with offences affecting the human body, were amended.

The ordinance was re-promulgated a number of times by successive governments of Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto, and finally in 1997 the same amendments were incorporated into the PPC through the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act of 1997.

Now, under section 309 of the law an adult, sane wali (legal heir) of a deceased can waive his right of qisas or forgive the accused.

Similarly, under section 310 the offence of murder is made a compoundable offence, and now any wali of a deceased can forgive an accused by compounding his right of qisas after receiving compensation.

In most honour-related murder cases, either the husband or parents are the wali of the deceased woman, and as the murder takes place in connivance with almost all the family members, they prefer to waive their right of qisas and forgive the accused.

Similarly, under section 306(b), an intentional murder is not liable to qisas when an offender causes death of his child or grandchild. Section 306(c) prescribes that an offender is not liable to qisas if any wali of the deceased is a direct descendent of the offender. When an offender is not liable to qisas under the said two provisions, he should be liable to pay diyat under section 308 and could not be sentenced to death.

Last year, in one of the cases, a two-member bench of the Peshawar High Court commuted death penalty of a person, Abdul Lateef, to life imprisonment as he had killed his wife in Chitral and was also having children from her. As the said children were wali of the deceased-woman and they were direct descendent of the convict, the death penalty could not be awarded to him under section 308.

Similarly, in another case, the high court acquitted a person for killing his maternal female cousin in Charssada district.

He claimed that as the woman had left the residence of her husband, with whom she was married against her will, it had brought a bad name to the family. The husband, from whose residence the woman had escaped, was her wali and he forgave the killer.

A few days back, the high court commuted death sentence of a person convicted for killing his daughter and another person to seven years imprisonment.

The court believed that it was a case of “grave and sudden provocation” as the convict had found the two in objectionable position.