Shahwar Mughal

             "Because sending them to trial means they'll bribe the judge and get released."

This was the response I received when I shared a story criticizing extrajudicial encounters. Initially, it came across as a counter-argument. But the more I reflected on it, the more I realized this isn't rebutting my point rather, it is actually proving it. It revealed something much more sinister than debate about encounters; it revealed our diminished trust in the institutions that are supposed to provide us justice. As Pakistan grapples with an intensifying crisis of confidence in its justice system, the rise of encounter policing has brought the debate overdue process into much focus. According to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan's (HRCP) February 2026 fact-finding report, the Punjab Crime Control Department (CCD) was linked to 670 police encounters resulting in 924 deaths between April and December 2025. HRCP found that many of these operations occurred without judicial convictions and lacked meaningful independent oversight. The situation was further aggravated in June 2026 when nine-year-old Australian-Pakistani Hania Ahmed was fatally shot during a CCD operation in Chakwal.

Here, the independent justice system is meant to determine whether every individual killed was guilty or innocent, not assumptions made in the aftermath of an encounter. This isn’t a problem for one trial, one case or one crime; it is far more than that. So much so that every horrible crime elicits more than a few moments of protest and righteous indignation. A question here is begging for fair inclusion: When institutions fail, do we give up or do we demand that they work? Each time a crime goes unsolved, each time a trial is delayed, each time a defendant is acquitted, news of the injustice and corruption enters more lives, leading more people to decide that it's a valid shortcut to get through. However, institutional failure and institutional abandonment are not the solution.

One wrong cannot become the justification for another.

Each week another horrific headline appears. A child is raped, to her and his sorrow, and murdered. A woman is killed over a mere refusal to intimacy. A family awaits justice for years and years but fails to come. Criminal cases disappear due to administrative delays, influential figures skew the process, and evidence is mishandled, thus eroding people's faith in the justice system. And then I hear another argument: "What's the point of sending criminals to trial if they'll just bribe the judge and walk free?" which is pretty much valid, and the frustration is real. But if corruption among the judges is a concern, then why not strike a blow against the roots of corruption directly in the system and not work around them? When judges are corrupt, they need to be punished. Investigations and prosecutions must be enhanced if they don't lead to a conviction. Reform, not replacement, is the answer to the problems of institutional failure.

A state's power is not its omnipotence to skirt the due process requirements, but rather its ability to make use of them. When we start to do away with investigations and substitute them with assumptions, evidence with expediency and courts with bullets, that’s when we normalize failure within the institutions. Without any forensic evidence, independent investigation and judicial scrutiny, how can one be sure that the guilty have been punished or the innocent have been made the face of a crime? These are not technical legal formalities; instead, they are the very safeguards that separate justice from assumption. HRCP's investigation into CCD operations found repeated patterns of encounter narratives in which suspects were alleged to have fired first while police officers escaped without injury. This highlights the absence of effective independent oversight.

It is obvious that when evidence is replaced by emotion, justice becomes more vulnerable to error. This has been proved by history when states have normalized shortcuts in the name of justice; they, in return, have eroded the system even more. Such shortcuts gradually become instruments of convenience, political expediency, and unchecked power. Perhaps the greatest risk in extrajudicial means of punishment for people is that innocent ones suffer. It is that it removes the incentive to fix the institutions that failed in the first place.

Why bother with investing in forensics, if they get through the encounters?
What's the point of enhancing the powers of investigation, if public opinion rewards immediate outcomes rather than accurate ones?
What purpose does a beefed-up prosecution service or judicial review serve if shortcuts will create headlines more quickly?

Calling out injustice may not fix the system overnight, but remaining silent certainly never will.

Each shortcut simply makes it appear as though the problem is solved, but in fact the weak spots remain there. The judicial system is simply ignored here. It is not the same thing as changing our institutions, but it's us resisting injustice being normalized. We cannot reform the institutions overnight, but what we can do is refuse the normalization of injustice. We can question state action, demand transparency and hold those in power accountable. Governments do not change their policies on their own; they change when citizens demand change. The terms of expediency and law may offer immediate satisfaction; however, they ultimately adversely impact the principles in place to safeguard people.

If judges can be bribed, then judicial reform should become a national priority.
If investigations are weak, then forensic capacity must be strengthened.
If police abuse authority, then oversight mechanisms must become more effective.
If prosecutors fail, then accountability must extend to them as well.

A society is not judged by how quickly it punishes those accused of crimes. It is judged by how faithfully it distinguishes the guilty from the innocent. Recent controversies surrounding CCD operations remind us why that distinction matters. Every person killed without judicial determination leaves behind unanswered questions not only about the individual case, but about the strength of the institutions entrusted to deliver justice. So, perhaps we should ask ourselves whether we are ready to amend our broken justice system, or will we continue to replace it with the same broken system while short-circuiting justice and looking for quick fixes? A just society never gives up on its institutions just as they fail. It reconstitutes and reproves them until they are worthy once again of the public trust.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official stance of The Himalayan Research Institute Pakistan (THRIP)

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Shahwar is an MPhil-IR scholar at the National University of Modern Languages (NUML), Pakistan. Her core interests lie in the Indo-Pacific region, East Asia, security issues, and policy analysis.