The lifting of moratorium on death penalty in Pakistan had been demanded by the military high command for a long time, said Pakistani academic Ayesha Jalal at a seminar here on Saturday.
The moratorium was lifted after Taliban gunmen attacked an army school in Peshawar and killed more than 130 children in December last year.
Describing the revocation of the moratorium as a “sort of knee-jerk reaction,” Ms. Jalal said: “I do not believe that going back to death penalty will solve the problem of terror which is deeply embedded and needs to be addressed at multiple levels by Pakistan.”
She claimed that the move points to the “inefficacy of the judiciary which cannot convict people fast enough or adequately enough.”
Ms. Jalal said that it was the problems in the judicial system that was “driving the return of capital punishment.”
She said there was an “ideological dimension” on lifting the ban on capital punishment as it was the former Prime Minister of Pakistan Benazir Bhutto of the Pakistan Peoples Party who introduced it.
“The party that is currently occupying power in Pakistan [Pakistan Muslim League (N)] has been in favour of death penalty.” She claimed that the U.S. was “losing interest in Pakistan,” adding that the U.S. “interest in Pakistan has been in the Army and nothing else.” “Those who want Pakistan to retain its democracy would like to see America taking less interest in Pakistan,” Ms. Jalal added.
