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1. Honour Killing and Criminal Justice System in Pakistan

Author:
Aqsa Ghazi and Umar Farooq Salamat
Publication Date:
11-2023
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Review of Human Rights
Institution:
Society of Social Science Academics (SSSA)
Abstract:
This article examines the factors that contribute to gender inequality and violence against women in Punjab, Pakistan. It focuses on District Gujranwala and examines patriarchal power structures, cultural norms, and restrictive gender roles. The article analyzes court decisions in District Gujranwala from 2012 to 2023, which show a high number of acquittals, mostly because of retracted eyewitness testimony. We argue that despite statutory reforms, there exists an over-reliance on visual evidence that undermines justice. We suggest that a comprehensive policy is needed that challenges cultural norms, advances gender equality, fortifies legal frameworks, and reforms investigation and prosecution techniques to effectively prevent honour killings and increase conviction rates.
Topic:
Law, Women, Criminal Justice, and Honor Killing
Political Geography:
Pakistan and South Asia

2. Exceptionality of the Principle of the Presumption of Innocence

Author:
Carlos Manuel Rosales
Publication Date:
12-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Review of Human Rights
Institution:
Society of Social Science Academics (SSSA)
Abstract:
The Principle of Presumption of Innocence (PPI) is one of the constitutional pillars of modern democratic state system. However, various theories and justifications have been developed for its inalienability to be reconsidered, especially based on the local context and needs of each country. This research highlights and critically analyzes the question of its reconsideration, the exceptions so far created, and its impact on the continental human rights jurisdictional system.
Topic:
Human Rights, Law, Justice, Jurisdiction, and Presumption of Innocence
Political Geography:
Global Focus

3. Incorporation of Universal Human Rights’ Norms in Municipal Law: An Analytical Study of Saudi Arabia, Iran, and India

Author:
Moosa Akefi Ghaziani and Mohmmad Akefi Ghaziani
Publication Date:
12-2020
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Review of Human Rights
Institution:
Society of Social Science Academics (SSSA)
Abstract:
The incorporation of universal human rights’ norms in public municipal law has often been a challenge for both Islamic and secular states. Employing an analytical method this article explores the main legal challenges to the incorporation of universal human rights norms into municipal laws in three states--Saudi Arabia and Iran, the two Islamic states, and India, the secular state. It is argued that despite their differences in the larger legal framework they follow a peculiar dualistic system to incorporate the human rights norms, which results in its application challenges.
Topic:
Human Rights, Law, and Norms
Political Geography:
Iran, Middle East, and Saudi Arabia

4. Zainab’s Murder: Heinous Crimes, Speedy Trial and the Challenge of Procedural Rights

Author:
Ali Chughtai
Publication Date:
12-2018
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Review of Human Rights
Institution:
Society of Social Science Academics (SSSA)
Abstract:
In early 2018, a seven-year old girl, Zainab Amin, was raped and murdered in district Kasur, Punjab province, Pakistan. The cold-blooded incident shocked the people across the country. These questions included the suspect’s confession before trial, the in-camera trial being completed within four consecutive working days, the cross-examination of 56 witnesses, and the paucity of time given to the defence counsel. In this paper I argue that although such heinous offences should be awarded legally warranted punishment, the courts must ensure that the special criminal procedure does not let go the principle of due process. I take Zainab’s case as an example to see whether the principle of due process and procedural rights of the suspect were ensured as required for a fair trial. The paper puts to critical light the chronological facts of the case (as reported in the press) and relies on applied jurisprudence to underscore the potential/danger of letting go the due process and procedural rights in speedy trials.
Topic:
Crime, Law, Children, Rape, and Due Process
Political Geography:
Pakistan and South Asia

5. Anglers of Men: the Politics of Rescuing African Migrants in the Mediterranean Basin

Author:
Lorenzo Rinelli
Publication Date:
12-2017
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Review of Human Rights
Institution:
Society of Social Science Academics (SSSA)
Abstract:
This article theorizes the dynamics that emerge from the intimate relationship between contemporary African migration, liquid borders, and law around the channel of Sicily, between Italy and Libya. There, in the same waters where Ulysses and Aeneas roamed for years, whose epic journeys are considered foundational within the European identity narrative, today the trajectories that migrants boats traverse are disrupting and shuffling the European geographical limits. As a response, states are enacting a policy of containment that renders African migrants’ presence at sea invisible, while criminalizing human solidarity enacted by private organizations as well as individuals. Making use of a legal discourse analysis I will dig the premises behind the antinomic concept of criminal solidarity that emerges today in Europe as a somehow coherent system of thought, shaped by laws, codes of conduct, rules, and rulings. Specifically, by analyzing the rulings of one tribunal in Sicily, I will make an attempt to expose how rigid conceptions of borders naturalize state’s efforts to define the limits of national territory, while conversely, I will consider how the micropolitics of justice are capable of shaping the contours of discourses on current migration.
Topic:
Human Rights, Migration, Law, Refugees, and Borders
Political Geography:
Africa, Europe, Libya, and Mediterranean

6. Law, Rights, and the Colonial Administrative System: A Critical Note on the Frontier Crimes Regulation (1901) in the FATA, Pakistan

Author:
Noreen Naseer
Publication Date:
12-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Review of Human Rights
Institution:
Society of Social Science Academics (SSSA)
Abstract:
With these regulations, the colonial administration consolidated the long-term basis of their power and institutionalised an oppressive administrative-judicial system. For this purpose they also engaged local elites and customs. The administrative-judicial system introduced on the Northwestern border was different from the criminal and civil laws introduced elsewhere in British India. In 1947, when British colonial governance ended and the tribal areas became part of Pakistan, the oppressive colonial system of the Frontier Crimes Regulation (FCR) continued. It is still in force to the present day. In this article, I discuss the control structure of the administrative-judicial system that was imposed through these crime regulations in the FATA. I argue that these regulations are against fundamental rights prescribed in Pakistan’s Constitution of 1973 and the UN Human Rights Charter. I also highlight the plight of tribal people suffering politically, socially, and economically due to these undemocratic and discriminatory regulations, which are unduly unjustified and defended by a group of people with vested interests.
Topic:
Crime, Human Rights, History, Law, and Regulation
Political Geography:
Pakistan and South Asia