News - News - Plight of death row prisoners

Parvais Jabbar, one of the joint Executive Directors of the Death Penalty Project based in London, and the Society of Asian Lawyer’s (SAL) Pro Bono Awardee for 2008, addressed a meeting of SAL on the impact of the project in making the plight of death row prisoners more tolerable all over the globe.

Parvais, a Human Rights Executive at Simons Muirhead & Burton, works mainly in the Caribbean and Africa, but he has visited many jurisdictions – most recently China lobbying for the abolition of the death penalty. He, however, accepts that there is a lot more work to be done to achieve universal abolition but points out that their efforts have at least achieved far greater limitations on the circumstances in which the death penalty can be imposed or carried out. A lot of countries which have not abolished the death penalty, for legislative or other reasons, have at least effectively suspended its operation for some years now. The efforts of the project have saved the lives of over 500 prisoners who otherwise would have been executed. 

The project, which has been in existence for over 20 years to promote and protect the human rights of those facing the death penalty mainly in common law jurisdictions of Asia, the Caribbean, and Africa, not only represents pro bono prisoners at risk of execution but it also provides expert support to local lawyers and human rights Non-Governmental Organisations in bringing legal challenges in death row cases.

Parvais spoke with a passion and enthusiasm, which would have left an indelible mark on all those who attended and maybe inspire some to give their time to this valuable work to protect the rights of the individual and the rule of law.