KARACHI: Around 8,000 convicts on death row languish in jails in Pakistan as the government enforced a temporary stay against executions in August last year.
After a long lull, the federal government has sought “legal” opinion from the provinces about the abolition of capital punishment, official sources here said yesterday.
Officials said that while the federal government temporarily stayed the hangings, it sent letters last month to the provinces to suggest a solution.
“The Sindh provincial government has also received a letter wherein it has been urged to assist the Centre on the delicate issue by providing legal opinion,” said an official.
The renewal of the stay on executions through a presidential moratorium sparked debate about whether the country - plagued by militancy, criminal and sectarian - should uphold the death penalty and carry out executions.
The stay was granted reportedly because Taliban militants threatened to target the new government led by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-N if it would send their men to the gallows.
Since 2008, none of the jailers across Pakistan had to shed a red handkerchief, because the then president Asif Zardari had granted a stay on executions in exercise of his power under Article 45 of the 1973 Constitution.
The article says: “President shall have the power to grant pardon, reprieve and respite, and to remit, suspend or commute any sentence passed by any court, tribunal or other authority.”
Internews
