- Move aims to align policies with GSP+ agreement with the EU: Talal.
- The most prominent aspects must limit Capital punishment to most serious crimes.
- The proposed legislation replaces the death penalty with life imprisonment.
Islamabad: To a measure destined to ensure that the country’s policies are aligned with international obligations, the Senate has approved the bill of criminal laws (amendment), 2025 that seeks to abolish the death penalty for hosting kidnappers and publicly remove a woman from her clothes amid The news reported on Saturday.
The bill was transferred in the Chamber by the Minister of State for Interior Talal Chaudhry to align with international obligations under the GSP+ Commerce Agreement with the European Union (EU), which requires limiting capital punishment to the most serious crimes.
The proposed legislation suggests the replacement of the death penalty by virtue of sections 354-A and 402-C of the PPC with a prison for life, while section 354-A in its current form reads: “Who assaulted or uses the criminal force against any woman, strips her of her clothes and exposes her in public will be punished with death or useful life, along with a fine.”
The declaration of objects and reasons of the bill notes under article 6 (2) of ICCPR, the death penalty can only be imposed by the “most serious crimes.” The section says: “In countries that have not abolished the death penalty, the death sentence can only be imposed for the most serious crimes in accordance with the law in force at the time of the commission of the crime and not contrary to the provisions of this Pact and the Convention on the Prevention and the Pastigo of the Genocide Crime. This penalty can only be carried out by a penalty ended by a final penalty.
The statement also says that in an effort to meet the requirements of the international commitments of GSP and Pakistan under ICCPR, three meetings with all interested parties were held in 7-9-2021, 8-9-2021 and 10-9-2021 to review the reduction of death penalty so that it is aligned with international law and Islamic jurisprudence. The control of the Interior and Narcotics Ministry proposes a bill of criminal laws (amendment), 2025 proposing the omission of the death penalty of the 1860 Pakistan Criminal Code with an alternative punishment of the life sections in sections 354 A and 402 C.
The parliamentary leader of Pakistan Tehreek-E-Insaf (PTI) in the lawyer of the Senate, Syed, all Zafar was standing to emphasize that the crime of taking away a woman from her clothes was as serious as the murder and emphasized that the death penalty for this crime should remain unchanged.
Similarly, Senator Muhammad Abdul Qadir feared that if the death penalty for terrorism was also abolished. Samina Mumtaz Zehri of the Baluchistan Awami party said that the laws of crimes against women should become stricter and warned that any indulgence in the embolden law would be criminals.
To corroborate his point, he also said that the condemnation rate was abysmally low due to weak prosecution and emphasized that the approach should be in police and judicial reforms and feared: “This is not correct. This will not help the country and the people.” In response to the members, the law minister, Azam Nazeer Tarar, said that the severity of the sentence cannot prevent crimes and further cited the example of Europe, where there was no death penalty and the crime rate was 2%.
He continued that in Pakistan, he was the death penalty for more than 100 crimes. He added that the sentence of stripping a woman of her clothes became seven years in prison to capital punishment in 1982 during the regime of General Zia Ul Haq.
The Senate adopted the draft extradition amendment bill to eliminate the procedural difficulties that cause delay in the processing of extradition requests and the draft amendment of the Pakistan Citizenship Law to allow the Pakistani diaspora to resume its Pakistani citizenship.
The law minister explained that extradition was always reciprocal and the appropriate security valves were very there.
In the draft amendment of the Citizenship Law of Pakistan, he said that this would facilitate those who have to renounce the citizenship of Pakistan, but the deep love of the homeland forces them to recover citizenship. The house will now be assembled on Monday afternoon.
