Diyyat: your route to justice

Protests against the release of Raymond Davis are just the latest in the fiasco caused by the concept of Diyyat. Essentially an ancient pre-islamic practice, they were brought to Pakistan in a box of chocolates named Islamisation that General Zia gifted to us. These were later wrapped into the shiny foil of an Ordinance by Benazir Bhutto in 1990. Forest Gump a visionary no doubt states, that with such chocolates you never know what you get and we keep swallowing the dark ones.

Here’s the skinny on Diyyat, you commit a murder and you can go completely free from any punishment be from the state or a divine entity if you can pay the price, just like what Mastercard says. Countless cases show such desi Raymonds living a life of freedom and peace thanks to the money paid. For the more curious amongst the readers some cases references are PLD 1992 Pesh 187, 1993 PCrLJ 1795, PLJ 1997 CrC 1122, 2000 PCrLJ 116 and 1997 PCrLJ 247. The more advanced Islamic nations have even decided on Diyyat rates that should apply to a particular scenario. As a rule of the thumb a woman murdered is worth half the money as that of a man. Non muslims get lesser than muslims in with the Christians getting the most, followed by the Jews and Hindu’s the least. Yemen makes an exception by giving more to the Jews than even the muslims. Iran improvises by adjusting the rates according to the month in which the murder took place. A flourishing jurisprudence is being developed in the philosophy of Diyyat the world over by scholars and in the times to come we shall all experience the wonders of the justice brought on by the assignment of a monetary value on human life based on strict calculations of gender, age, race, religion, social status, location and even time.        

A justice system based on two parties and how they conduct their affairs in a particular contract independent of any interference by any regulatory authority is a utopian anarchist dream. But that would mean also the complete removal of a state and all state machinery. A state figuratively speaking comes into being when individuals get together and sign a social contract. They decide that they will make a group where they will bestow powers upon certain members of the state and to them they will surrender their freedoms and rights. That they will pay taxes and they will follow the rules and laws set by those power bestowed members. In return, however it the duty of the state to protect them, nourish them, provide them with facilities and amenities and treat them equally. When a crime is committed it is not committed against an individual, it is committed against a state. This is because it is the laws of the state that have been broken and every individual is a component of the state. Therefore the ideals of equality come in where in equal punishment needs to be meted out to every crime that we experience.

When diyyat is followed a state not only refuses to implement its own criminal justice system but goes as far as to absolve itself of any responsibility related to the individual who died. The murdered individual was a citizen of the state and the direct responsibility of the state itself. If the individual was a bread earner of a family then it is the duty of the state to support and nourish the family rather than allow them to receive money for the blood of their relative. Diyyat gives way to a new crime, one that is not a crime at all in fact in Pakistan, the crime of economic duress. If a murderer can murder a person and pay for it, then he will no doubt use all his money and resources to force the family of the deceased into accepting that blood stained money. The concept itself was introduced in a tribal war waging society where a state system to support individuals had not developed. Today in the 21st century such laws are obsolete and downright repugnant to the basic concepts of Islam and equality. If such crimes are to be justified by economics then it won’t be long before crimes of rape, kidnapping, defamation, slavery etc will have a price set on them. If life itself can be quantified then there is no reason why its subsidiaries such as honor, dignity and freedom can not have a price.

Raymond left us in a flash after paying 20 crore rupees in cash, that as per the law were supposedly counted and recounted in half an hour (they make 40,000 notes of 5000 rupees). We now have to decide what will happen in the future.