EDITORIAL: A key, but often ignored, aspect of our broken criminal justice system is the state of our prisons and the abject treatment of those incarcerated within them. This was highlighted at some length on August 27 by a three-judge Supreme Court bench hearing a review petition of a murder convict, who had spent 24 years in a death cell, and had pleaded that since he had already served a life term for his crime, his death sentence be commuted to life imprisonment.
While accepting his petition, Justice Jamal Khan Mandokhel very rightly noted that “all prisoners living in death cell are not only deprived of their constitutional rights, but they also live under mental stress”. He pointed out that death row inmates are held in solitary confinement under constant surveillance in a tiny cell measuring about 9x12 feet, with a single toilet to be shared by all prisoners on the death row, compromising their privacy and dignity.
Apart from the other indignities that death row inmates have to put up with, what is too often ignored is that prolonged detention in prison that is equal to or exceeds the period of life imprisonment is punishable under Section 302(b) of the Pakistan Penal Code.
The fact that this important stipulation of law routinely goes unheeded has led to countless death row inmates living out their lives in wretched circumstances for decades, especially since our overburdened courts time and again fail to process their appeals in a timely manner. With the timing of their execution remaining uncertain, this leads to unimaginable anxiety and mental torture not just for the inmates but for their families as well.
While the dismal treatment meted out to death row inmates is indeed condemnable and as urged by the Supreme Court bench, laws must be passed at federal and provincial levels to address their plight, it must not be forgotten that the general prison population in Pakistan fares only slightly better, with their rights also routinely violated and their living conditions often falling short of basic constitutional provisions.
As has been highlighted by various rights bodies, one of the most critical issues afflicting prisoners’ rights in the country is that of overcrowded prisons. According to Justice Project Pakistan, as of October 2023, the country’s 127 jails held approximately 100,366 prisoners, with a staggering 73 percent of them detained while awaiting trial.
The criminal justice system’s overly frequent use of pre-trial detention, even for minor offences, has resulted in Pakistani prisons operating at 152.2 percent of their intended capacity, creating severe overcrowding across the country’s facilities.
It should be noted that back in 2020, the Islamabad High Court had declared that detention in overcrowded and unsanitary prisons amounted to “cruel and inhuman treatment” for which the state should be held accountable. However, consequential reforms on this front are yet to take shape, which means that stories of physical torture at the hands of prison authorities, as well as negligence when it comes to prisoners’ healthcare, abound.
While the federal and provincial legislatures have shown willingness to reform our carceral system in recent years, progress on the ground has been painfully slow. An example is that of the Torture and Custodial Death Act, passed in 2022, making torture and custodial deaths of prisoners a criminal offence. So far, however, there have been no convictions under this law.
What is needed is for Pakistani prisons to be transformed into reformative spaces that focus on education, skill development and reintegration into society, rather than merely serving as overpopulated facilities of punishment and neglect. Without meaningful prison reforms at the federal and provincial levels, the deplorable conditions and violations of basic human rights within these institutions will continue to undermine the integrity of our justice system.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2024
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