ISLAMABAD, Oct 3: It is high time that the laws on death penalty were updated since these were originally passed in a very different social context, MNA and Parliamentarian Commission for Human Rights (PCHR) Riaz Fatyana said.

Speaking at a dialogue on ‘The administration of Death Penalty laws in Pakistan’, organized by the PCHR, he said there were about 6,000 prisoners on death row in jails all over the country.

He said there were more then 20 sections in the criminal law which provided for the death penalty for crimes other than murder. “The rapid rise in the number of people facing death sentence demands a review of the place of death penalty in our criminal justice system,” he said.

“We have to keep our laws and justice system up to date, in a period of rapid, profound, social change. Political representatives, jurists, lawyers, legislative bodies and civil society should all contribute to this review,” Mr Fatyana said.

He said the laws awarding the death penalty for crimes other than murder had been in place over the past two decades as an ad hoc response to specific problems and short-lived crises.

“But the death penalty should never be taken lightly as there is no redressal if a mistake is made. There is now an opportunity to go beyond the ad hoc decisions to review the full range of death penalty provisions and strengthen the checks in the justice system,” he said.

Law and Justice Commission secretary Dr Faqir Hussain urged participants of the dialogue to consider how to maintain the balance between the severity of the punishment and the gravity of the crime in any review of the system.

“The criminal justice system already provides for the context of crime and the situation of the accused to be taken into account when a court awards punishment. Any reforms must maintain a balance between the gravity of crime and the punishment awarded,” Dr Hussain said.

Parliamentary secretary for food production Javed Ali Shah said the priority in criminal justice reforms must be to ensure that the judiciary had the means to hold safer trials in which the public had full confidence. However, he maintained that the continuing role of death penalty as the ultimate deterrent to heinous crime was necessary.

MNA Gayan Singh, speaking on the occasion, called for safeguarding the rights of minorities in the laws on death penalty.

“At present, it is too easy to accuse members of Pakistan’s religious minorities of blasphemy and then getting them convicted and sentenced to death under infamous section 295C,” Mr Singh said.