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Pakistan: Honour Killings or premeditated murder

13 March 2016

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The News, February 28, 2016

The dishonour of compromise

by Asad Jamal

It is ironic how one has to describe a crime of the worst kind with a word like ‘honour’. Thus when Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif says “there’s no honour in honour killing†, it shows a way forward to the multitude of women who are subject to retrogressive traditions and customs that keep them slaves to a misogynistic society. The prime minister has expressed his desire to make appropriate changes to the relevant law.

It took the nomination of a Pakistani documentary film to the Academy Awards for our representatives to wake up to a tragedy that is a daily occurrence in this country.

According to the statistics available with the Punjab Police, the numbers of ‘honour killings’ for the province of Punjab in the last five years – from 2011 to 2015 – are 256, 184, 275, 312, and 242 respectively. These are cases that somehow found their way to the police stations. There could be many more.

A news report based on an interview with a high-ranking policymaker in Islamabad appeared in this paper a few days ago. The content of the report was less than reassuring. The policymaker was quoted as saying that in the case of honour killings, the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) was being amended to treat the crime of honour killing as ‘Fasad Fil Arz’. This, according to the policymaker, ‘is being done to authorise the court whether to accept or reject a compromise between the complainant and the killer who in most cases of honour killings are blood relations’.

This is a well-meaning but flawed solution. Besides, the law already provides this as a result of an amendment which came into force in January 2005.

So what’s the problem? Consider.

Section 311 of the PPC already declares murder committed in the name of ‘honour’ as Fasad Fil Arz and it also provides that the minimum punishment in such cases shall not be less than ten years of imprisonment. Further, section 338-E provides that any waiver or compounding of such an offence is subject to conditions imposed by the court but with the consent of parties. This amendment was made possible because waiver and compounding are provided in the law where qisas is applicable. And a compromise reached between parties may still be discarded and punishment may be awarded as taazir. A minimum of ten years of imprisonment is prescribed as the secular punishment for ‘honour’ killing. So what went wrong? The problem is more systemic and much deeper than is generally acknowledged – even though it is understood by some.

In 1989, the Shariat Appellate Bench of the Supreme Court in the Gul Hassan case (1989), an appeal filed by the federal government against an earlier decision of the Federal Shariat Court, declared the then existing punishments and other aspects in the chapter on offences relating to the human body un-Islamic and made eight specific directions in the way the criminal law must be changed to make it Islamic.

As a consequence, the option, among other things, of compounding (compromise as a result of payment of diyat – blood money – for the offence of killing or arsh etc in the case of bodily hurt) and waiver (pardon accepted for the offence of killing or bodily hurt) were introduced in the PPC. Since these options were left entirely – even though in cases of qisas only– to the discretion of the legal heirs of the victims, it has had serious adverse impact on the whole of the criminal justice system.

This has been called the ‘privatisation of justice’, which has impacted even where the court has the discretion to impose secular punishment prescribed in the statute as taazir. It isn’t that compromise between parties was not allowed for certain offences before 1989. But with the Islamic sanction assigned to it, each instance of every offence against human body – including killing, and the so-called ‘honour’ crimes – is now considered to be de facto pardonable or compoundable.

The courts as well as prosecutors are happy to play the role of the post office as they do not have to go through the burdensome challenge of conducting trials. The police are readily inclined to submit documentary evidence of compromise reached between the parties even before the trial begins. This allows them, among other things, to save time and other resources to be spent on investigation, and to act as mediators between the parties. This has practically paved the way for more corruption.

Thus, one sees compromises being reached and money exchanging hands even in rape cases where the law prohibits compromise. This is empowerment of the evil kind. The victims’ relatives are either wary of the system as no justice is expected, at least not speedily, and/or are under pressure from their biradari/clan and their community elders. Once the parties submit a compromise, it works as an automatic trigger.

In the statistics mentioned above, over 90 percent of the cases are estimated to have ended in some kind of compromise – with the perpetrators let off the hook. This is the ‘spill-over effect’ of qisas and diyat laws; and it has literally crippled the system. It is for this reason that the trial courts do not use the existing discretion to award minimum punishment of ten years in the ‘honour’ killings of women as well as men.

If PM Nawaz Sharif is really interested in the welfare of the vulnerable women and men and children of this country, he should make sure that the appropriate kind of amendments are made to the penal code.

Due to the absence of comprehensive, reliable data we do not know the exact scale of the problem of honour killings. Some civil society organisations that monitor honour killings put the numbers at 700-1000 per year for the period 2011-15 for the whole of Pakistan. The actual numbers are estimated to be double – in the range of 1500-2000. Either way, this is a big social problem, not just in terms of the number of human beings killed but also in terms of its social implications. The victims include men but an overwhelming majority in the range of 70-80 per cent or more, of the victims are women.

Every possible step must be taken to eliminate this social evil. Legislation is one of the many important aspects to look into and perhaps is the easiest one. Let’s start with that. Eliminate the discretion currently vested with the court and make all honour crimes mandatorily punishable with no possibility of compromise between the parties.

The writer is a lawyer engaged in drafting a comprehensive set of amendments to curb crimes committed in the name of ‘honour’. Twitter: @LegalPolitical

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The Express Tribune, 12 March 2016

Rooted in dishonour

by Amina Jilani

It is high time that the pernicious mendacious phrase ‘honour killings’ was expunged from the lexicon of what has become known as the ‘Muslim world’ and this particular Islamic Republic can take the lead. There should, in this 21st century, be no murders that are justified by the claim of upholding a non-existent ‘honour’.

The perpetration of such killings (reported regularly and sickeningly in our press) is pure and simple premeditated murder and must be treated as such. The killings of women (rarely men) are deliberate, planned and premeditated when men get together, claiming violated honour, and rid themselves of pesky female relatives. They are protected by the Qisas and Diyat law (blood money) which similarly needs to be stricken from Pakistan’s statute books.

This law, cropped up as an ordinance at the time of an interim government in 1990, was re-promulgated with consistency, and finally made into a law in 1997 by our present prime minister in his second coming. Mian Nawaz Sharif executed a great PR coup when he pronounced, following the Oscar nomination of the Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy short documentary (later a deserved second Oscar) on the subject of these premeditated murders, that “there is no honour in honour killings†, echoing the views of the few commentators who have consistently clamoured for action against these murders since the 1990s.

He should be chuffed that the phrase has been printed in bold letters in a full-page advertisement in the International New York Times, inserted by globalcitizen.org/chime whose website gives credit to Obaid-Chinoy for “leading the way to change legislation.â€

So, now, what does the prime minister intend to do about legislation? Expunge ‘honour killings’ and substitute premeditated murder. Flush blood money down the national choked-up drain? Take on the jirga system which is as guilty? Dare he? In a previous existence he did away with the Friday weekly holiday (part of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s last ditch stand to save his government) and reverted to Sunday. The heavens did not fall. So, it is possible — that is if he can unentangle himself from his religious right brethren and subdue parliament. Both may pose problems. Who knows how many who sit in the name of democracy in the hallowed legislative houses possess the mindset of a present sitting senator?

In the most honourable Senate sits a supposedly democratically elected senator, Mir Israrullah Zehri, brother of the chief minister of Balochistan. He has the honourable distinction and is on record in the honourable house in 2008 of having upheld the premeditated murder of two (possibly more) women of Balochistan, who were allegedly buried alive in his province in the name of ‘honour’. Zehri’s stance was that the premeditated murder of women who are suspected of ‘immoral acts’ (a neat way of putting it when men wish to rid themselves of troublesome women) are ‘centuries old traditions’, time honoured ‘tribal customs’ which must not be discontinued. How many like-minded companions does he have within and outside parliament? Judging by the reactions to the Obaid-Chinoy film one could say fairly numerous (to put it mildly).

Yes, Obaid-Chinoy has factually depicted Pakistan in its barbaric ugliness; yes, she has factually shown the world what goes on in the Islamic Republic when it comes to attitudes towards women. Her purpose is a wake-up call — and she had the gumption to do it twice and be rewarded. The objectors may screech as they may, but they cannot deny facts. Only Zehri-like champion them.

Now, it is up to the monarch of legislators to show us he meant what he said. And, of course, up to the ‘establishment’ to support him. The next stop is those equally iniquitous laws — blasphemy, equally difficult to tackle given the national mindset. The very fact that it could be deliberated in the apex court of the land as to whether a man could commit premeditated murder and justify it by claiming his victim had committed blasphemy is chilling in the extreme.

P.S.

The above article from The News and The Express Tribune are reproduced here for educational and non commercial use