EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Like 160 countries in the world, Pakistan has enacted legislation prohibiting the sentencing and imposition of the death penalty against juvenile offenders - persons who commit crimes before turning eighteen years of age. However, despite this prohibition, hundreds of suspected juvenile offenders have been sentenced to death. On 16 December 2014, the Government of Pakistan lifted a six-year de facto moratorium on the death penalty. Since then, at least 6 juvenile offenders have been executed despite credible evidence showing them to be underage at the time of the alleged crime. This report documents the many ways that Pakistan’s juvenile justice system fails its juvenile offenders and results in the Government of Pakistan’s unlawful and arbitrary implementation of the death penalty against juvenile offenders. The violations highlighted in this report compel the conclusion that even though the Government of Pakistan has consistently maintained that no executions of juvenile offenders have taken place, the lack of implementation of protective safeguards and protocols particularly whilst conducting age determination investigations means that juvenile offenders continue to be executed. PA K I S TA N , J U V E N I L E J U S T I C E A N D I N T E R N AT I O N A L L AW A THE EXECUTION OF JUVENILES IS PROHIBITED U N D E R I N T E R N AT I O N A L L AW The international community realizes that children are inherently different from adults and thus merit special considerations throughout the legal process, particularly during sentencing. Capital punishment fails to take into account the child’s limited culpability and disallows opportunities for rehabilitation or redemption. Thus, the execution of offenders under the age of 18 years is squarely prohibited in international law by a number of multilateral treaties, such as the United Nations Convention on The Rights of the Child (CRC)2, which Pakistan ratified in 1990, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), ratified by Pakistan in 2008. 3 B PA K I S TA N C O M E S U N D E R I N T E R N AT I O N A L C R I T I C I S M FOR EXECUTION OF POTENTIAL JUVENILE OFFENDERS Pakistan’s failure to protect juvenile offenders from the death penalty since the resumption of executions has drawn sharp criticisms from international actors. In May 2016, Pakistan’s fulfilment of its obligations under the CRC was reviewed by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. In its Concluding Observations the committee noted that it “is seriously alarmed by reports of the execution of several individuals for offences committed while they were under the age of 18 years, or where the age of the individual was contested following the lifting of the moratorium on 1 Justice Project Pakistan & Reprieve, Juvenile on Death Row, (March 2015), http://tbinternet.ohchr.org/Treaties/CRC/Shared%20Documents/PAK/INT_CRC_NGO_PAK_21444_E.pdf UNCRC, Article 37 (A) states that “neither capital punishment nor life imprisonment without possibility of release shall be imposed for offences committed by persons below 18 years of age” ICCPR Article 6(4) states that “sentences of death shall not be imposed for crimes committed by the persons below 18 years of age”. 2 3 05 DEATH ROW’S CHILDREN