Punjab yet to make juvenile justice system rules

LAHORE: All four provinces have failed so far to make the rules of business for implementation of the Juvenile Justice System for the children involved in crimes, despite its passage from the National Assembly in year 2018.

According to the official documents available with the correspondent, the Juvenile Justice System Act, after its approval, was referred to the province on May 22, 2018 for its implementation. The provincial governments were bound, under the law, to make the rules of business for its implementation, but they failed to do so despite passage of almost three years.

In Punjab, Home Department’s Probation and Parole Department framed draft rules of business for the Juvenile Justice System and referred those to the additional chief secretary two months back, but those were not approved by the provincial cabinet yet.

The official documents showed that juvenile justice committees had not been formed so far due to the absence of the rules of business, which was a violation of Section 10 of the Juvenile Justice System Act 2018. Under the new law, all such cases involving children, in which maximum jail term could be awarded up to 10 years, were supposed to be sent to the juvenile justice committees. But now all such cases are being sent to the regular courts, and currently nearly 5,000 children have been lodged in Pakistani jails. Only in Punjab’s 41 jails, more than 3,000 children are languishing in prisons. It is worth mentioning that the children serving life terms or on the death row in jails are not included in the 3,000 children list.

According to section 82 and 83 of the Juvenile Justice System Act 2018, children under 14 years of age could not be arrested. Earlier in 2016, CrPC was amended on pressure from the United Nations and the detention age of children was increased from seven years to 10 years and then to 14 years in cases in which maximum jail term of seven years could be awarded. In various countries, including Sweden, Denmark and Australia, children in the age group of 17 to 21 involved in petty crimes are also sent to reformation centres after arrest, instead of sending them to jails.

Punjab Law Muhammad Basharat Raja told the correspondent that Juvenile Justice System Act 2018 was approved by the federal government on May 22, 2018. He said the rules of business for its implementation in Punjab in the process of approval. He said the provincial cabinet would soon give approval to these rules.

He said there were various departments in the province which have not made the rules of business for implementation of their relevant laws even after passage of 15 years. He said he had sought performance reports from all departments about the framing of the rules of business.