Paper Laws: Enforcing legislation more effective than public hanging.

On Thursday, 28 September in Committee Room No. 4, Parliament House, Islamabad, the majority of the Senate, despite the flaws of the bill introduced by Senator Mushtaq Ahmed, agreed for publicly hanging rapists. Though at cursory glance, the amendment sought in the current regime seems to be a valid attempt for deterring delinquent behaviour, on deeper appreciation, this proposed amendment, akin to those introduced in the recent past, is but a mere attempt to shove the actual problem under the rug while covering up the failures of law enforcement agencies.

This archaic mindset, mindlessly fascinated by the concept of harsher punishment fails to comprehend, intentionally or otherwise, the root-causes of continuance of crimes against women in our society. Rather, they needlessly emphasise towards the enactment of futile and draconian measures, which in turn silence out their critics for a moment, only for the cacophony of criticism amplifying with each subsequent failure.

They see rigorous penal measures as the sole deterrent. Among various reasons for punishing a convict, one such reason, called 'General Deterrence', is based on the idea that crime can be discouraged through the public's fear of punishment. That may be true, but for a court of law to sanction the accused, certain requirements need to be met, such as the prosecution bringing forth enough evidence to establish beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused is guilty.

This is where the actual issue lies and why Atul Setalvad terms such legislation/amendments as 'Paper Laws' while describing them as laws designed to fail and at worse, the failure of such laws shake the confidence of the people in laws in general as they see malefactors going scot-free. If a prosecution is launched, and fails, people lose faith in the courts and the judiciary, even though the actual cause of the failure is a defect in the law or inefficiency or corruption amongst the enforcers and the offender who has evaded one law is tempted to evade other laws.

The issue in Pakistan has never been lack of legislation or more stringent punitive measures, rather, as the Supreme Court of India in Re: Noise Pollution AIR 2005 SC 3136 highlighted, 'The real issue is with the implementation of the laws. What is needed is the will to implement the laws'. Similar observations were made by the Lahore High Court in Yasir PLD 2022 Lahore 263 that 'To protect the women in the country against sexual assault, strict...