Court directs IG prisons to submit SOPs to meet condemned prisoner

LAHORE:Lahore High Court Chief Justice Mamoon Rashid Sheikh on Thursday directed Punjab inspector general of prisons to apprise about Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) to meet a condemned prisoner.

The CJ was hearing a petition filed by Justice Project Pakistan (JPP) on behalf of brother of a juvenile prisoner, Muhammad Sarfraz, who was denied a meeting with his counsel to sign a power of attorney just five days before his scheduled execution. Muhammad Sarfraz was executed later on May 10, 2016.

Representing the petition, Barrister Sarah Belal argued that Article 10-A of the Constitution guaranteed a prisoner’s right to meet his counsel and have a power of attorney signed and duly attested by the jail in order to pursue any relief for the enforcement of their fundamental rights.

She said this right was inviolable throughout the course of the prisoner’s imprisonment. She further told the court that the number of days between an execution warrant and hanging in Punjab was reduced from between 14 and 21 days to between three and eight days in 2014.

She said after issuance of the death warrant a prisoner was left to count the remaining days of his life. Chief Justice Sheikh observed that a prisoner could not be deprived of his fundamental rights guaranteed under the Constitution.

In view of the importance of the matter, the CJ converted the petition into public interest litigation and directed the inspector general of prisons to submit the SOPs followed by prison officials in order to secure rights of condemned prisoners to meet their counsel and sign a power of attorney.

Hearing was adjourned till Feb 6.

As per the petition, Sarfraz was 17 years old when he was arrested in 1993. Five years later, he was later sentenced to death by a sessions court of Gujjar Khan in 1998 prior to the promulgation of the Juvenile Justice System Ordinance, 2000. His execution was scheduled to be carried out on March 22, 2016 after which his family was not allowed to get a PoA signed by the jail officials at Adiala Jail, Rawalpindi.