A data analysis report titled “Counting the Condemned” revealed by the Justice Project Pakistan (JPP) stated that the Supreme Court has overturned 85 per cent of death sentences since December 2014.
Moreover, the report quoted by a local media outlet added that Pakistan’s use of the death penalty was among the harshest in the world, accounting for “26 per cent of the world’s death row, 13 per cent of global executions and 14 per cent of worldwide death sentences”.
According to the JPP report, “Since the six-year moratorium was lifted in December 2014, Pakistan carried out 13 per cent of all global executions.”
The report further stated that since 2009, “at least 19,767 people have been sentenced to death globally”.
In that time, “Pakistan’s courts have sentenced 2,705 people to death which accounts for 14 per cent of death sentences worldwide.”
From 2015 to 2017, “3,659 executions were carried out globally and Pakistan accounted for 13 per cent of those, with 479 executions.”
In another startling revelation, the report found that the official number of prisoners on death row in Pakistan had dropped to 4,688 in 2018, from 7,164 in 2012.
The study found that “on average a prisoner had to spend 11 years on death row before the commutation of the death sentence or acquittal by the Supreme Court”. Since 2004, Pakistan has handed down at least 4,500 death sentences.
An analysis of 150 executions from 2015 by the JPP found that disputes over land or money accounted for 36 per cent and family disputes for 26pc.
The report stated that this was because of the failure to resolve civil issues timely, which made people take “matters into their own hands” which led to violence, that further led to the death sentences.
The JPP called for the reduction in the scope of the death penalty by excluding non-lethal crimes.
The report further suggested that the trial court judges must be trained properly on the use and application of the death penalty in line with “the most serious” offences standard; and also recommended reforms for civil disputes to decrease the time taken to resolve them.