More than 5,000 prisoners, sentenced to life-term imprisonment by courts, and now in detention, are going to be released following the publication of a Supreme Court judgement.
The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court has delivered its written judgement, saying that a convict awarded life-term imprisonment has to serve 30 years in jail.
According to the 120-page judgement, such a convict should get Reyat (deduction benefits) of seven and a half years as per the laws if it is not specifically mentioned in the verdict that the convict is sentenced to imprisonment until death.
A seven-member full bench of the Appellate Division of the SC, headed by Chief Justice Syed Mahmud Hossain, delivered the verdict by a majority decision following a review petition involving the dispute over the meaning and tenure of a convict’s life-term imprisonment.
The bench of the apex court delivered its short verdict on December 1 in 2020 by a majority decision. The written verdict as well as the full text of the verdict was published on Thursday (July 15). Justice Muhamad Imman Ali, senior judge of the bench, disagreed with the six other judges.
The SC bench in its full text of verdict on review petition stressed the need for a statutory guideline for the sentencing policy.
The full bench of the Appellate Division heard expert opinions from four amicus curiae -- AF Hassan Ariff, Rokanuddin Mahmud, Abdur Rezak Khan and AM Amin Uddin-- over the issue.
Ataur Mridha, a life-term convict, filed the review petition challenging an apex court verdict that on February 14 in 2017 commuted his death penalty to life imprisonment in a murder case.
The SC bench, headed by the-then Chief Justice SK Sinha, had said life imprisonment means jail sentence until the death of the convict. After that, Ataur Mridha submitted his petition to the SC, seeking review of its judgment.
According to the appeal verdict, the release of the about 5,000 life-term prisoners was hampered. But in the review verdict, the apex court ruled that imprisonment for life apparently means a convict’s jail sentence for the rest of his or her life. After publishing the final verdict, there is no obstacle to the release of the prisoners, said Advocate Mohammad Shishir Manir, a lawyer of the convicted prisoner Ataur Mridha.
The lawyer said that the prisoners, sentenced to life imprisonment, will have to serve 30 years and will get the remission. It means, convicts awarded life imprisonment will have to remain behind bars for a total of 22 and a half years. So, more than 5,000 prisoners will now benefit from the apex court verdict, and be released as soon as possible, he added.
Alongside others, Shishir Manir’s client Ataur, sentenced to life imprisonment, will also benefit from the SC verdict. He will have to be in jail for two and a half years more.
On October 15 in 2003, a tribunal in Dhaka sentenced three people, including Ataur Mridha, to death in a murder case. Later, the High Court also upheld their death sentence on October 30 in 2007.
The Appellate Division in its verdict said, “This Court feels that it is the primary obligation of the legislature to carry out necessary amendments in the cases where imprisonment for life is provided to make the convict/prisoner aware about how much time he has to undergo in prison. Otherwise, the approach of reformative, rehabilitative and corrective systems will be a futile exercise. Otherwise, also to keep a prisoner behind bars is a financial burden on the state exchequer, and for that reason, it is imperative to fix some determinate punishment by making amendments.”
In the full text of the verdict, the apex court judges observed, “There is no guidance to the judge in regard to selecting the most appropriate sentence of the cases. The absence of sentencing guidelines is resulting in wide discretion which ultimately leads to uncertainty in awarding sentences. A statutory guideline is required for the sentencing policy. Similarly, a properly crafted, legal framework is needed to meet the challenging task of appropriate sentencing.”
The SC judges also observed, “There can be no sentence worse than that which consumes that full span of a man’s life. Unlike death penalty cases, life sentences receive no special consideration on appeal in the Appellate Division under article 103 of the Constitution which limits the possibility they will be reduced or reversed. Spending an entire life in jail, growing sick and old, and dying there, is a horrible experience. It is ‘the extended death penalty’ known officially as life imprisonment with reduction or remission. It is a ‘secret death penalty’ as Pope Francis wrote in his recent encyclical ‘Fratelli tutti.’ He has suggested that all prisoners deserve the ‘right to hope’ and said ‘if you close in a cell, there is no future for society.”
Shishir Manir and some other lawyers said that life-term imprisonment is not a solution.
The life-term imprisonment denies the prisoner’s human rights because it offers no possibility of release and no hope for the future. International human rights law allows life-term sentences only in the most serious crimes and prohibits the use of life imprisonment without parole.
