NCHR holds first board meeting

Islamabad: National Commission on Human Rights (NCHR) held its first board meeting after the appointment of new Chairperson NCHR Rabiya Javeri Agha.

The two-day marathon meeting was presided by the new Chairperson and was attended by the NCHR regional members including member Punjab Nadeem Ashraf, member Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Tariq Javed, Member Sindh Anis Haroon, Member Balochistan Professor Farkhanda Aurangzeb and Member Minorities Manzoor Masih. At the onset, the Board Meeting discussed in-house improvements and directions that need to be taken to make the NCHR fully operational; including challenges of limited human resources, the development of human rights and finance rules and management of a severely shrunken budget.

Discussion were also held on the development of a strategic action plan, civil society collaboration, Universal Periodic Report (UPR) consultations and research work to be undertaken in the future. The NCHR members also discussed at length the Sialkot issue which NCHR is following on a day to day basis. Member Punjab informed that he is in touch with the DPO Sialkot on a regular basis.

NCHR members also undertook a full day refresher course on the judicial process as per the NCHR Act. With support of UNDP and RSIL law, the session offered an over view of the complaint registration procedure at NCHR. The Commission also discussed the setting up of digital case management system for expeditious disposal of cases. It was informed that the largest number of cases received at NCHR deal with police abuse and torture. Increasing outreach and ensuring high standards of adjudication were some of the goals that NCHR hoped to achieve.