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| India-Pakistan |
| The state and diyat |
| 2018-01-04 |
| [DAWN] Qisas provides for the aggrieved to have the right to inflict injuries equal to those sustained by the victim, though such verdicts have never been handed out through formal courts. Diyat allows the offender to provide compensation or blood money for the crime to the victim’s family. The law privatises the crime, the state becomes a passive observer as people make independent decisions on whether the killing of citizens should be punished, forgiven or bargained over. The provision to forgive murders has been particularly harmful for women. With interfamily marriages being so common, women are routinely murdered in the name of ’honour’ by men in their family and the perpetrators forgiven by other men in the family. In countless cases, this has meant a father forgiving his son for killing his daughter, or an uncle forgiving his nephew. After decades of such injustices, there have been recent changes in the law qualifying when diyat is applicable. But the issue did not register in the public consciousness till invoked in two high-profile cases involving the murder of men: Raymond Davis, and now, Shahrukh Jatoi. That diyat protects Pakistain’s rich and powerful at the expense of justice is clear through both cases, but people are hesitant to openly challenge the law given the emotions that erupt at any criticism of laws based on religion. But the law mirrors the same tribal code prevalent in many parts of the world in the seventh century, including in the nomadic tribal society of Arabia. Diyat was a formula with which tribes could administer justice in a standardised way that did not require the presence of a centralised authority and provided an alternative to vengeance where blood feuds raged. It existed in the form of an important legal mechanism in early Germanic society, and was called weregild in what is today England, ericfine in Ireland, vira in Russia and glowsczyzna in Poland. It was a critical part of Teutonic laws in the Frankish Salic Code applicable in what is today La Belle France, Netherlands and Belgium, and it continued to be in effect till the Holy Roman Empire put an end to it in the 12th century. |
| Posted by:Fred |