Tag: death penalty

Asia Bibi v. The State: Judgment of the Supreme Court of Pakistan

The text below is the judgment of the Supreme Court of Pakistan. You can download an official copy of the judgment here, but some may find it more convenient to read it on the web.  Please note that some of the formatting (italics, spacing possibly some Arabic / Urdu script and especially some line breaks) has not been reproduced correctly, for which I apologise.

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF PAKISTAN
(APPELLATE JURISDICTION)
PRESENT: MR. JUSTICE MIAN SAQIB NISAR, HCJ
MR. JUSTICE ASIF SAEED KHAN KHOSA
MR. JUSTICE MAZHAR ALAM KHAN MIANKHEL
CRIMINAL APPEAL NO.39-L OF 2015
(Against the judgment dated 16.10.2014 of
the Lahore High Court, Lahore passed in
Crl.A.No.2509/2010 and M.R.No.614/2010)
Mst. Asia Bibi
…Appellant(s)
VERSUS
The State etc.
…Respondent(s)

For the appellant(s):
For the State:
For the complainant:
Date of hearing: 		 

Mr. Saif-ul-Malook, ASC
Mr. Zubair Ahmed Farooq, Addl.P.G.
Mr. Ghulam Mustafa Chaudhry, ASC
8.10.2018
JUDGMENT

MIAN SAQIB NISAR, CJ. – Continue reading “Asia Bibi v. The State: Judgment of the Supreme Court of Pakistan”

Asia Bibi’s life is in the hands of the Pakistan Supreme Court

The Pakistan Supreme Court will shortly rule on whether 47 year old Asia Bibi must hang for blasphemy. If she loses her appeal, she is likely to become the first person to be executed under Pakistan’s extraordinarily harsh blasphemy laws.

To read the judgments of the Pakistan courts is, for an English lawyer, to enter a world which seems strangely familiar and yet utterly alien.

The language of the judges bears a close relationship to the language of the English courts: there are “Honourable Judges” (though usually abbreviated to “Hon’ble”) the senior judges are called “Mr (or very rarely “Mrs” or “Miss”) Justice,” all counsel are “learned” and many of the laws enforced still date from the days of the British Empire. The Penal Code, for example, still contains reference to [the admittedly repealed] Section 58, with its Dickensian “Offenders sentenced to transportation, how dealt with until transported,” and Section 56 which deals with “Sentence of Europeans and Americans to penal servitude” (in the days of the Raj, European prisoners were accommodated in a special “European only” prison, or repatriated to serve their sentences in a cooler climate). Still very much in force, however, is a death penalty, carried out just as the British liked it, with an old fashioned noose, gallows and long drop. Continue reading “Asia Bibi’s life is in the hands of the Pakistan Supreme Court”

Sally Smith’s Biography of Marshall Hall is a wonderful read.

Over the next few days I’m going to recommend some good books for summer reading for anyone interested in the law, especially the criminal law.

The first is Sally Smith’s biography of Marshall Hall: “A law unto himself.” (Wildy, Simmonds & Hill £25, although available for a bit less on Amazon). Smith is a barrister, a very good one too, who since taking silk has specialised in medical cases, although she obviously knows her way around the criminal law too.20160728_183901

Her subject, Edward Marshall Hall – known to many simply as Marshall – was what we would now call a “celebrity:” a barrister whose oratory saved numerous men and women from the gallows. He was not always successful of course, and these days it is mainly the clients he failed to save that are remembered: George Joseph Smith, the “Brides in the Bath” murderer; and Seddon, who was said to have poisoned his lodger with arsenic in order to get his hands on her annuities. Continue reading “Sally Smith’s Biography of Marshall Hall is a wonderful read.”

This is no time for rejoicing: Erdogan is pulling Turkey towards despotism

There has been much rejoicing in the West that the attempted military coup in Turkey has been defeated by “people power.” People of all political persuasions, it has been said, including many strongly opposed to the governing AK Party, came onto the streets to defend democracy against a military putsch. They did so in answer to a call from President Erdogan in his now famous Facetime broadcast which was then repeated from minarets all over Istanbul and Ankara. There were acts of great bravery as unarmed civilians stood in the way of tanks, as well as scenes of horror, not least when bewildered conscripts appear to have been lynched. 

Meanwhile, pictures have been posted of the alleged coup leaders, now being held in custody. They look haggard and worried, as well they might.  Continue reading “This is no time for rejoicing: Erdogan is pulling Turkey towards despotism”