Lahore, July 5, 2013: The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) has called upon the Punjab government to continue with four-year suspension of execution of death row prisoners in the province’s jails.

Earlier this week, HRCP had called upon the president and the prime minister to extend the informal moratorium on executions after a presidential order suspending hangings expired on June 30. HRCP had expressed concern over the presidential order not being reissued after its lapse, unlike the practice since 2008.

Punjab has the highest number of death row prisoners in Pakistan. In fact, over 6,000 death penalty convicts in the province are one of the largest death row populations anywhere in the world.

In a letter to the Punjab chief minister on Friday, HRCP said that apart from more than 6,000 death row prisoners in Punjab’s jails, there were thousands more charged with or being tried for death penalty offences. That meant that if hangings were to resume, nowhere else in Pakistan would there be more lives at risk of being taken away by the authorities than in Punjab.

The Commission wrote: “We wish to point out that not one of the pressing reasons for HRCP’s longstanding opposition to the death penalty have changed in any way since the federal government decided to put in place an informal moratorium on executions in late 2008. The critical and well-documented deficiencies of the law, administration of justice, police investigation methods, as well as chronic corruption in the country and the province today have not at all improved since the time that the government first decided to suspend executions in 2008. In the circumstances, capital punishment allows for a high probability of miscarriages of justice, which is wholly unacceptable in any civilised society, but even more so when the punishment is irreversible. Contrary to the much vaunted argument of deterrence, the systematic and generalised application of death penalty in the country had not led to an improvement of the situation of law, nor has suspension of executions led to a hike in death penalty offences.”

HRCP said that it continued to call upon the federal government to adopt an immediate moratorium on executions in light of the serious shortcomings of due process and fair trial in the criminal justice system. It also continued to request the president and the prime minister to issue an order extending suspension of execution until a formal moratorium was announced. In its letter to the Punjab chief minister, HRCP urged him to support its call to suspend executions. HRCP said that if the Punjab government had decided to resume executions it must take into account the numerous and pressing reasons for HRCP’s opposition to capital punishment in Pakistan and reconsider any move to resume hangings.

Zohra Yusuf

Chairperson