SC decides today whether mentally ill prisoners can be hanged or not

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court (SC) of Pakistan will decide today (Wednesday) whether mentally ill prisoners on death row can be hanged or not, in a case that was first taken up by former chief justice Saqib Nisar in 2018. At stake are the lives of three prisoners — Kanizan Bibi, Imdad Ali and Ghulam Abbas.

Each of them is suffering from schizophrenia, a mental disorder which causes symptoms such as delusions, hallucinations and paranoia. Each of them has exhausted options of appeal; their mercy petitions to the President of Pakistan have also been rejected. Their case is presently being heard by a five-member bench headed by Justice Manzoor Malik.

Former CJ Saqib Nisar had taken suo moto notice in 2018 after his predecessor, Anwar Zaheer Jamali, said in 2016 that schizophrenia was not a permanent disorder.

Justice Project Pakistan, a non-profit legal action firm, has been defending the above-mentioned mentally ill prisoners, arguing that hanging such persons would be a violation of human dignity and is also against international obligations. In the past, the execution of mentally ill persons was stopped at the eleventh hour due to the court’s intervention. So far around 100 such persons have been executed; Munir Hussain was the last one. He had no recollection of his trial, according to his family, and didn’t even recognise his loved ones during his last meeting with them before he was hanged.

The case under question made its way to the SC when suo moto notice was taken over Kanizan Bibi case. A middle-aged woman, she was sentenced to death in 1991. Her mental health started to deteriorate soon afterward. She was transferred to the Punjab Institute of Mental Health where her diagnosis of schizophrenia was confirmed by successive medical boards. She has lost ability to understand her surroundings. At times, she has been unable to even feed and clothe herself. Hospital staff confirmed in its reports that she had not spoken a word in all the years she spent in their care. Kanizan was hospitalised in 2006.

According to her family, Kanizan was 16 years old at the time of arrest and she was tortured in police custody. Kanizan has not spoken a word in almost a decade due to the trauma she has endured. Despite several attempts to permanently relocate her to a psychiatric facility, she remains incarcerated, having spent 30 years on death row.

Imdad Ali also suffers from paranoid schizophrenia. Sentenced to death in 2002, Imdad has spent nearly 20 years on death row, with four years in solitary confinement in the jail hospital. His condition has continued to worsen.

Imdad comes from an extremely poor family and after he was convicted, he could not afford the opinions of private medical consultants which would detail his mental illness in court. Imdad was eventually sentenced to death for shooting a religious teacher with a rifle in 2001.

His mental illness was first noticed by his family in 1998 after he returned from a work trip from Saudi Arabia. According to them, Imdad would be found talking to himself or to objects. Imdad’s wife raised his mental condition in the trial court but the prosecution alleged that he was able to respond rationally to questions put to him. The judge also failed to mention his mental illness in his conclusion when sentencing him to death. Despite clear evidence of mental illness, Imdad’s appeals have been repeatedly dismissed by the courts, his mercy petitions have been rejected, and his death warrants were issued twice in 2016.

Ghulam Abbas exhibits strong evidence of epilepsy and schizophrenia including symptoms such as delusions and auditory hallucinations, as well as an intellectual disability. Arrested in 2006, he has spent almost 15 years on death row.

Ghulam Abbas’ psychosocial history reveals that there is a marked history of mental illness in his immediate family. His father attempted suicide by slitting his throat and paternal aunts suffered from mental illnesses and his sister, too, has neurological disorders requiring regular drainage of excess fluid from her brain.

A five-member medical board constituted by the Supreme Court evaluated Ghulam Abbas in October 2020 and declared him to be suffering from “Schizophrenia” and “Intellectual Impairment”. The report stated that he exhibited paranoid delusions, auditory hallucinations and decreased self-care.