On compassionate grounds

That death row inmate Khizar Hayat came as close as he did to the gallows tells us a lot about the state of our justice system today. Hayat, a former police constable who was convicted of killing a fellow cop in 2001, has been diagnosed as suffering from severe mental illness by jail authorities, and an examination by the Punjab Institute of Mental Health unanimously diagnosed him with schizophrenia and psychosis. According to Hayat’s lawyers, he does not know why he is in prison or that he may be hanged. Yet, until a last-minute suspension by the chief justice of the Supreme Court who has now sent Hayat’s final appeal to a larger bench, he was scheduled to be executed on January 15.

This case reveals the inequities at the heart of how justice is dispensed in the country. The rich and influential get pardoned by the families of their victims or wriggle their way out of facing the consequences of their actions while the legal representation given to those without means is so poor that they can languish on death row for well over a decade despite being obviously mentally unwell. It is telling that at the same time Hayat’s family was desperately seeking relief, the owners of an upscale restaurant who served expired meat that killed a child were forgiven by the child’s family.

The death penalty should be used sparingly, if at all, to avoid precisely these kinds of situations. The hangman’s noose is irreversible and we cannot have confidence that the correct decision is reached. In the case of someone like Hayat, the death penalty does not serve as a just punishment when the perpetrator does not even know why he is being punished. Just keeping him in virtually solitary confinement all these years is itself cruel. When the moratorium on the death penalty was lifted, we were told it was needed to eliminate dangerous militants and punish those guilty of the most heinous crimes. Instead, it seems to be used indiscriminately. Hayat poses no danger to anyone. And justice in any case should ideally seek to be rehabilitative rather than retributive. Hayat needs proper treatment, not the death penalty. His case should also lead us to take another look at how we treat prisoners and whether they are receiving the mental health tools and help that they need. We should try to be a society that treats everyone with compassion rather than being blinded by vengeance.