The chairperson of the National Commission on the Status of Women (NCSW), Justice (retd) Majida Rizvi, addressed a meeting of citizens in Lahore last week and explained why the Commission has recommended the repeal of Hudood Laws in Pakistan. These were enforced by General Zia ul Haq in 1979 as ordinances.
The contradictions in the “blind” enforcement of these Islamic provisions reduce justice to a farce. The 15-member committee set up by the NCSW to prepare the report on the repeal showed the following pattern of opinion: 12 favoured repeal, two wanted the Hudood amended to remove contradictions, one wanted the recommendations “given effect”.
According to the press, when the Commission’s report was made public last month, the only nay-sayer in the Committee was chairman of the Council for Islamic Ideology (CII), Dr S M. Zaman, who didn’t want the Hudood laws changed. But then the CII has recommended the most blatantly extreme legislations to further Islamise Pakistan. The Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal vows to implement the CII’s recommendations thus far shelved by a shell-shocked government.
The last Commission under Justice (retd) Nasir Aslam Zahid had recommended similar reform in 1997 but its report joined others in the dustbin, starting with the one prepared by Begum Zari Sarfaraz under orders from Zia ul Haq himself. The latest report is supposed to go before the National Assembly where the MMA is rampant while the opposition parties, the Pakistan Peoples Party and Pakistan Muslim League (N), are not interested in losing ground among the masses by endorsing it. The PML(N) can hardly go back on its Islamic agenda which included separate electorates and the dreaded 15th Amendment that would have outdone the clergy in its extremism. And the less said about the PML(Q) the better in matters of Islamic reform because its leaders have made an art form of hanging on to the coat-tails, first of General Zia, then of the jihadi clergy.
Parliament is poised to tear the Report to pieces. Prime Minister Jamali’s government will probably sit on it pretending to prepare a suitable legislative document and may in the end consign it to oblivion. Meanwhile, the impression is being created that a majority of Pakistanis is opposed to tampering with the Hudood Ordinances, with less than 20 percent in favour of amendments, as per a recent independent TV channel program. And this with the public knowing next to nothing about the laws, and labouring under the mistaken illusion that repealing General Zia’s diktat would somehow be violative of Divine Will. The clergy too has gone to the press growling that any change in the said laws would be opposed tooth and nail.
We know that most Pakistanis will favour the recommendations of the Report if properly explained its contents. For instance Dr Kausar Firdaus of the Jamaat-e-Islami who participated in a TV discussion with Justice Majida Rizvi on 23 September conceded that the ordinances would have to be amended to meet the demands of justice. The main reason for repealing the Hudood Ordinances is that this would allow the courts to consider cases under the more rational Islamic principle of Tazir. Since Tazir gives more latitude to the court it can help avoid that which literally binds the judges to handing down maximum punishments without considering any mitigating factors.
What are the Hudood Laws’ contradictions? If a woman alleging rape is unable to bring four male witnesses to the act she can attract the mischief of the Hudood under Zina and may be lashed or stoned to death simply because she has owned up to being violated. On the other hand, when men accuse women of fornication and fail to prove it, they are not subjected to “qazaf” and punished for wrongful accusation. Sections of the Hudood and Tazir laws covering traditional personal laws are applicable to non-Muslims as well, but non-Muslims, together with Muslim women, are not allowed to become witnesses under the Islamic Law of Evidence. Non-Muslims are not allowed to be presiding officers in court when their co-religionists appear before it under Hudood.
Pakistan has been consistently embarrassed by the law of “rijm” or stoning to death. It is accepted in Pakistan as a “hadd” (Quranic punishment) without emanating from the text of the Quran. The country’s higher judiciary has given two contradictory decisions on its validity. Although General Zia enforced “rijm”, Pakistan has so far avoided stoning anyone to death for fear of being globally ostracised. The Pakistani clergy was greatly embarrassed this year when Iran abolished the punishment after stoning a few innocent women to death.
As Justice Rizvi’s Report says, why not get rid of a bad law if you can’t implement it? Why should General Zia’s ordinances be considered sacrosanct to the extent that removal of their flaws is considered violative of divine injunction? We know that if the MMA comes to power in Pakistan it will imitate the Taliban and stone people to death in public to show how pious Pakistan is. But that is not how other Islamic countries think. Egypt’s Al Azhar has allowed “riba” (bank interest) which is anathema in Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia says it will allow the accused to bring their lawyers into Islamic courts. Are we in Pakistan holier than the Pope?