PAKISTAN. FSC DISMISSES PETITION CHALLENGING DEATH SENTENCE IN RAPE CASES

a full bench of the Federal Shariat Court (FSC) in Pakistan dismissed a Shariat petition stating that death sentence awarded in rape cases were contrary to the injunctions of the Holy Quran and the Hadith and challenging the trial of rapists in Anti-Terrorism Court.
The Shariat Bench comprising Chief Justice Ejaz Yousuf, Justice Fida Muhammad Khan and Justice Saeed ur Rehman Farrukh held that it had no jurisdiction to entertain the petition.
The petition had challenged Section 10(4) of the Zina Ordinance VII of 1979 under which those accused of rape were sentenced to death without having to adopt a strict standard of Tazkiyah-tul-Shuhood (criteria of evidence).
The petitioner also maintained that the word Zina (rape) was not contained anywhere in the Schedule of Anti-Terrorism Act 1997 and as such could not be treated as terrorism and hence tried in an anti-terrorism court under sections 6 and 7 of the ATA 1997.
The petition had sought to suspend the death penalty to all those awaiting executions for rape.
It was also requested in the petition that the court should declare capital punishment issued under any penal code as contrary to Islamic injunctions.
The petitioner quoted the case of four death convicts charged with raping a Christian girl in Faisalabad in 1999. The Faisalabad Anti-Terrorist Court had sentenced Shahzad alias Shado, Muhammad Ashraf, Umer Hayat and Mubarak Ali to capital punishment. The Lahore High Court and the Supreme Court upheld the sentence and a mercy petition filed before the President of Pakistan had also been dismissed despite the fact that the parents of the rape victim had forgiven the rapists.