India’s Kulbhushan Jadhav, currently imprisoned in Pakistan on espionage charges, has not been granted the right to appeal his conviction despite a 2019 ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ). A report by Dawn highlights that while consular access was provided following the ICJ decision, Pakistan claims the ruling did not explicitly mandate a right to appeal in a higher court.
The revelation came during a hearing before a constitutional bench of Pakistan’s Supreme Court, which is currently reviewing the legal rights of Pakistani nationals convicted by military courts in connection with the May 9, 2023, riots after the arrest of former Prime Minister and PTI chief Imran Khan.
In response to a query on whether the same legal provisions were extended to Jadhav, the Defence Ministry’s counsel argued that the ICJ’s verdict only required consular access and not necessarily appellate relief. He acknowledged that Pakistan had previously breached Article 36 of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, which guarantees foreign detainees the right to communication and access with their respective consulates.
Following the ICJ judgment, Pakistan introduced legislative amendments to enable limited judicial review of military court verdicts—measures that included Jadhav’s case.
Jadhav was apprehended in Balochistan in March 2016 and sentenced to death by a military tribunal in 2017 on charges of espionage. Islamabad has accused him of being a Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) operative aiding separatist movements in Balochistan.
