Life imprisonment: Life or 25 years, a law that requires interpretation, in Pakistan

Abstract

The Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) transmits ten kinds of punishments among which the death sentence is certainly the most severe punishment, and the courts adopt stringent criteria in the assessment and appreciation of death sentence. Even the slightest deviation from the prescribed criteria of the verdict often compels the courts to convert a possible ‘capital punishment”, i.e., a death sentence, into life imprisonment because the PPC directs capital punishment as a distinct possibility, while “life imprisonment” seems as the “De Duobus Malis, Minus Est Semper Eligendum”; the lesser is always to be chosen. This legal implication raises numerous questions: If and how a life imprisonment that is enacted as 25 years is less heinous? What is the duration of life imprisonment? Besides, this legal loop hits too close to the human right standards and does not serve justice. Despite the long history of discussions, cases, and state laws, the time span of life imprisonment still needs an interpretation, and Pakistan is no exception to it. A mere read-through of the code is enough to raise this contention. An interpretation is required to settle the ambiguity in law. This research paper will shed light on the ways of imprisonment and its probable improvements in light of other common law following states. It will also describe whether 25 years as life imprisonment is enough to contemplate the meaning of statutes or is it actually subject to some conditions or is it life till death.