THE government鈥檚 filing an appeal with the Appellate Division challenging the High Court verdict that has asked prisons authorities not to keep in solitary confinement the inmates meted out death sentences before all judicial and administrative processes are completed is irrational and insensitive. The High Court on May 13 gave the verdict as it disposed of a writ petition that three condemned prisoners filed in September 2021 challenging the legality of keeping such prisoners in solitary confinement before the completion of all relevant processes. The home and the law secretary, the inspector general of prisons, the inspector general of police and the superintendents of the central jails of Chattogram, Sylhet and Cumilla on May 14 filed the appeal against the High Court verdict. The High Court in its verdict asked the authorities to shift all such prisoners from solitary confinement to general cells in two years. The Appellate Division, however, on May 5 stayed until August 25 the High Court verdict. After the High Court verdict had been stayed, the attorney general said that the government had raised a couple of legal issues regarding the verdict, noting that a civil petition would be filed on receiving the full text of the verdict.
The irrationality of the government鈥檚 filing the appeal and the government insensitivity to prisoner鈥檚 rights that it shows, however, remain. The High Court says that the judicial and administrative processes are the disposal of the appeals in higher courts, the review petition and the presidential mercy petition. Any prisoner convicted to death sentence could be enlarged during the three processes. If it so happens, keeping such prisoners in solitary confinement becomes injustice which is beyond any reparation. This appears more so as, as the High Court observes, it could take 15 to 20 years to exhaust all the judicial and administrative process in cases involving death sentences. Keeping prisoners handed down death sentences in solitary confinement, therefore, constitutes a violation of not only rights but also legal provisions. The constitution in its Article 35 prohibits inhumane, degrading punishment and cruel treatment of citizens. The High Court also observes that the executive misuses the provision of the prisons act and the jail code by keeping such prisoners in solitary confinement before the death sentences are finally upheld. The High Court, which considers the solitary confinement of such prisoners as punishment of another kind, says that individuals cannot be punished twice for a single offence. The court further says that the detention in solitary confinement for such a long duration also constitutes a violation of Section 73 of the Penal Code, which lays out that the solitary confinement of any convict could not exceed three months.
The government鈥檚 appeal against the High Court verdict, therefore, appears irrational and insensitive to prisoner鈥檚 rights. While it must consider what the High Court has said, it must also have in mind the issues when it makes the next prisons act that the government works on.