NA panel on human rights takes stock of its performance

ISLAMABAD: National Assembly Standing Committee on Human Rights on Tuesday directed the Ministry of Human Rights to update the members on the implementation and compliance of the committee recommendations.

In a meeting held with MNA Zahra Wadood Fatemi in the chair, the committee members raised points that there is no record of the implementation of committee recommendations. “There is no use of holding meetings and print reports when there is no implementation on ground,” said MNA Munaza Hassan.

The federal secretary for Ministry of Human Rights (MoHR) Rabia Javeri suggested the committee secretariat to make a matrix of recommendations which can then be circulated among the relevant government departments to get an update about the status of implementation.

The committee also directed the MoHR to share the government reports submitted to the United Nations as signatory of international conventions. They also asked the ministry to share the reports of international human rights conferences attended by the ministry officials and parliamentarians for check and balance and overall education of the committee members.

The meeting also featured presentation on the performance of National Commission on Human Rights (NCHR). Sharing the details, Secretary NCHR Mashood Mirza said that from July 2015 to June 2016, the commission dealt with 860 complaints, petitions and suo moto actions out of which 277 were disposed of after fulfilling requirements of natural justice including due process and fair trial.

Mashood said that the commission visited six jails, namely Karachi central prison, Quetta jail, district jails in Jhelum, Gujrat, Central Prison for Women in Karachi and Youthful Offenders Industrial School Karachi, to find out whether the provisions of the applicable laws and other provisions related to inmates living conditions and other rights are being complied with or not.

Commenting on a recently reported case of a woman languishing in jail only because of her inability to pay Rs5,000 as Diyat , the NCHR secretary said it was missed by the commission members during their visit mainly because of the lack of the capacity of commission members to identify rights violations.