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Thursday March 28, 2024

DRCs resolved 2,500 cases out of 3,000 in Swat since 2014

By Faisal Kamal Pasha
January 27, 2018

Swat: Majority of the cases resolved through restorative justice mechanisms like the Dispute Resolutions Councils (DRCs) in police stations in Swat pertains to family disputes, say members of the council, affecting women as well as men.

DRCs are Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) platforms first established as a pilot project in police stations in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in 2014. Since then they have become operational in all districts of the province with members drawn from the community, usually elders enjoying people’s trust, who resolve conflicts through mediation between parties to a conflict.

All this was told during a workshop organised by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in December last month where journalists from different media organisations were briefed about the ADR system and were taken to the model police stations and provided with an opportunity to interview the DRC members.

According to KP police website, the aim of the DRCs establishment is to create engagement between offenders, victim and the community to have reconciliation on community disputes. In the conservative KP, women affected by domestic and other disputes are reluctant to go to police stations for reasons of purdah. “Women think of police stations as places managed by men,” said says Zeenat Gul, 32, a councillor in local government and a woman member of Police Liaison Committee. They think of them as places meant to deal with criminals, she added.

Every DRC has its own territorial jurisdiction with 21 members each of which members are notified by the local police usually elders, well respected and bearing good repute. DRCs are based within police stations, either police refers cases to DRC or an applicant comes to SHO requesting to refer his case to DRC. The DRC Chairman constitutes a panel of 3 members and fix a dates for hearing, the second party is invited through police, after listening to both parties, the DRC members present options for resolving the conflict, which is drafted as a contract/agreement when both parties agree to it.

The number of women representing in DRCs in quite low. The Rahimabad DRC in Swat has only a single woman as its member out of 21. Members of the DRC and people of the area told that it is due to the cultural issues that women were not encouraged to participate.

Data from the model police station in Rahimabad area of Swat - one of the KP districts where the UNDP has helped establish DRCs and trained members in mediation, basic law and human rights - shows that it had dealt with over 3000 disputes since 2014. Of these 2500 cases have been settled through mediation while the rest of the cases have either been referred to court, or the parties didn’t agree to reconcile.

“Most of the cases referred to the DRC in Rahimabad relate to domestic disputes, inheritance, land grabbing and demarcation,” said Sher Zaman, a member of the Rahim Abad DRC. While in a developing democracy like Pakistan, the perception of the rule of law as experienced in everyday situations remain negative and critical.

The rule of law environment has been further vitiated by terrorism and general breakdown of law and order in its wake since 2001. While the government and the security apparatus has been distracted to address the ever-rising threat and incidents of terror across the country, the understaffed and underequipped police and the justice system has been increasingly drawn into dealing with terrorism, saddled with cases of terrorism and distracted from their routine role of ensuring civil and criminal justice.

While the need for community policing and alternative dispute resolution cannot be overestimated in Pakistan where the rule of law is far from effective. However in contrast to the conventional justice system, DRCs don’t insist that all parties to a dispute must appear before them. If someone is reluctant or there is a women who don’t want to come, DRC members themselves go to her. To a question that how DRCs take charge of a particular case, DRC members told that cases were referred to them by the police and sometime courts as well.

In some cases, a person himself/herself requests the police to get their cases resolved through the DRC. “The DRC then calls both the parties to negotiating table and try to solve the problem if both parties agree,” said Sher Zaman. “DRCs are just there to mediate but if one of the respondents insists to get a solution of the problem through a court of law, we don’t press them anymore. Normally 99% cases were amicably resolved through DRCs which itself a great success.”

But perhaps more than the DRCs, the initiative that encourages women to come to police stations to seek resolution of their cases is the establishment of Women Desks. The Women Desks are available at model police stations where UNDP has trained staff including women in conflict resolution, human rights and basic law.

“Due to social stigma and barriers, women in Pashtun community are wary of discussing their issues and matters with men,” said Habib Ullah, Deputy Superintendent of Police at Mingora. “Availability of female police staff 24/7 at the Women Desk makes it easy for ladies to come to the police station, discuss their issues and file complaints any time.”

“The establishment of women desk in polices stations has helped and facilitated women in the province who can now easily discuss and lodge complaints regarding their issues,” the DSP said. Earlier, there was no women staff due to which it was difficult for women to discuss their problems with male police officers, he added.