ISLAMABAD Pakistan: Observing fault lines in the bill moved as private member bill in the National Assembly on July 09, 2024, the participants of a consultative meeting held in Islamabad on Saturday underlined concerns and expectations regarding the establishment of a statutory National Commission for Minorities Rights.
The meeting brought together representatives of the national human rights institutions, government representative and human rights experts
In the meeting, prominent law and rights experts including the Executive Director of Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) Peter Jacob, Zafarullah Khan, Shafique Chaudhary, Romana Bashir, Jam Muhammad Aslamand, and Pirbhu Lal Satyani underscored that the institutional protection of minorities in Pakistan was imperative to address embedded inequality of rights on the basis of religion as well as to strengthen the rule of law and good governance.
The experts pointed out that the billed tabled recently in the Lower House of the Parliament was a ditto copy of the bill which was rejected by the Senate last year due to obvious flaws. They regretted that the recent bill would entail a weak structure of the proposed body.
They expressed their disappointment that bill had not been consulted upon with competent Civil Society Organizations.
The mover of the bill, MNA Naveed Amir Jeeva, joined the discussion and graciously agreed to removing weaknesses in the draft bill. He was applauded by the participants for pushing through the amendment in Christian Marriage that restricts marriages below the age of 18.
The experts demanded that the federal government should introduce a treasury bill and pass a law to establish a body with mandate to make policy recommendations, investigate complaints against human rights violations, and propose remedies.
The participants recommended that the prospective commission, as an independent minority rights institution, must be a human rights institution rather than a religious body and reflect religious diversity.
Moreover, there is no need for a representation of the Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) or Evacuee Trust Property Board (ETPB) as is the precedent set in formation of other National Human Rights Institutions on human rights, child rights, and women’s rights.
The meeting organized by Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) agreed to form a working group tasked to draft a comprehensive bill in conforming with UN Paris Principles and the directives of the Supreme Court of Pakistan issued on June 19, 2014 (SMC No. 1 of 2014), and agreed to work with federal ministries, legislators, and political parties for the introduction of an effective Bill in the parliament.
