ISLAMABAD – Pakistan’s apex court ordered the formation of a larger bench to determine the exact length for a life sentence.
A three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan Asif Saeed Khosa took notice of the issue while hearing a petition on Monday.
The case, which became a reason for the top judge to take up the matter, relates to reduction of convict Haroonul Rashid’s sentence into half; the convict was sentenced to life imprisonment 12 times in 12 different cases of murder and has been in jail since 1997, serving a 22-year sentence.
During the hearing, Rashid’s lawyer informed the bench that the court had allowed for the 12 sentences to be served concurrently.
“Is it not a misconception that a life sentence spans over 25 years?” the chief justice wondered.
“When we don’t know how long a person is going to live, how can we halve a life sentence,” he questioned and remarked that he had been waiting for a long time for a case where the court could determine the span of a life sentence.
“In a jail sentence, days and nights are both counted. In this manner, a convict comes out within five years,” the top judge observed.
“It is time that we clear up these major misconceptions and figure out the span of a life sentence. It is a matter of public interest,” the chief justice said after which the court issued notices to the attorney general, provincial advocate generals and prosecutor general.
The registrar office was also ordered to fix the matter for hearing in the first week of October.
