The Age of Criminal Responsibility and its Effect on Dispensation of Justice

Age of criminal responsibility is the age at which a person is held responsible for all her criminal actions. The presumption is that at this age the person becomes capable of understanding the nature of the act and its probable consequences. Different legal systems tend to fix different age limits for this purpose depending on crime rate in the society and local customs and culture. Pakistani law lacks consistency in the definition of the child and gives different age limits for different purposes: the upper limit being alternatively between twelve and eighteen years of age. In this article, the age of majority and then the age of criminal responsibility has been discussed. Attempt has been made to analyse Islamic law as well as Pakistani law related to this issue.

Dr Mudasra Sabreen holds an LLM in Shariah and Law from the International Islamic University Islamabad and a PhD in law from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), UK. She is the Chairperson of the department of Shariah at the Islamic International University, where she currently serves as an assistant professor of law.