The Express Tribune Editorial 6 March 2021

Prison reforms

As part of its prison reforms plan, the Punjab government has proposed setting up a complaints redressal system for a fair and speedy resolution of inmates’ grievances. Steps would be taken to rectify prisoners’ grievance that their complaints against jail officials and unsatisfactory conditions in the prison do not reach the relevant officials because of the alleged machinations of prison management. Prisoners complain to officials who visit jails, and to prison superintendents and district and sessions judges when they are on routine inspection of prisons. The proposed rules will facilitate an inquiry by the IG Prisons or the government if there are reasonable grounds to believe that prisoners have been subjected to inhuman treatment. Such inquiries can be initiated even if a formal complaint has not been registered.

The superintendents of each prison will constitute a permanent complaints committee. The members of the committee will be the jailer, the senior-most deputy superintendent, the medical officer and the social welfare officer. In prisons where there is a women’s enclosure, a female deputy superintendent too will be in the committee. A grievance committee will be set up in every division to review complaints received from prisons. Now prisoners can verbally inform inspection officials during their visits to jails without the presence of the prison staff. Also, prisoners can complain to the district and sessions judge without the presence of jail staffers, if the former so desire. The IG Prison will submit monthly reports to the government on the actions taken on complaints so that remedial measures can be taken to rectify prisoners’ grievances in light of the deficiencies pointed out in the reports.

Poor prisoners face harsh conditions in jails while rich and influential inmates get all comforts. For the latter, prisons are much like home. The public has romantic notions about prisons which they have formed from watching movies, like this dialogue Mein jahan khada hoon line wohin se shru hoti hai i.e. the line starts from where I am standing.

After the Senate vote

Despite significant gains in the Senate elections, the results are widely being seen as a disappointment for the PTI. Even the PTI chief, Prime Minister Imran Khan, seems to agree to this assessment. The ‘hit’ taken by the party was hard enough that Imran has now decided to call for a vote of confidence in his own government. All in all, this is a good move. It is clear that some members of the ruling coalition voted against their candidate in the election for Islamabad’s male senator. A confidence vote would clarify whether they were voting for Gillani and against the PTI candidate, or for the opposition and against PTI itself.

A combination of the two scenarios is also possible — Gillani remains well-respected and well-liked among political circles while Finance Minister Abdul Hafeez Sheikh, despite a long career in government, remains a political outsider. The fact that he is also the face of the PTI government’s economic policies does not help. Reports also suggest that Sheikh’s nomination did not even go down well with the PTI rank and file. In this scenario, the problem was not with the PTI but with the candidate. On the other hand, if the vote implies dissatisfaction with the PTI government, we may have a much bigger problem.

Interestingly, in both scenarios, Imran will easily win the confidence vote — either his government still has ‘honest’ majority support, or the ‘corrupt’ people who switched allegiances will duplicitously back the government to keep their own seats and avoid a snap election. Winning the vote will also help Imran put any speculation about the government’s short-term future to rest.

Meanwhile, one positive that normally comes from election losses is introspection — party leaders look inside to determine what went wrong. This, unfortunately, is not the prime minister’s strong suit. Instead, he rolled out his ‘greatest hits’, accusing the ECP of being biased and the opposition of bribery, without considering that, if this is true, at least some of the people taking bribes were handpicked by Imran himself. A few months back, Imran said the time for blaming others for the party’s failures is over. It appears he did not get his own memo.