Daily Times

Human rights agenda has not stretched out so deep in Pakistan. Many of the policy and practice level human rights issues are either disused or less addressed by the civil society.The question of Pakistan’s non-subscription to the United Nations’ treaty body-based individual complaint procedures on human rights is one among those areas.

The treaty body-based individual complaint system established by the United Nations is meant to provide redressal mechanism to the victims of the human rights which are guaranteed under its nine core human rights treaties. The committees set to monitor the work of these treaties can be approached by the human rights victims or by their representative in some cases.

The human rights status in Pakistan is worrying, and the need of the hour is to generate strong discourse and activism around this pressing issue. Civil society should play its role in this regard

However, an individual can file a complaint against his or her state under one of the nine core human rights treaties provided he or she has exhausted all the existing domestic remedies; secondly, alleged state is party to the human rights treaty that is invoked; and thirdly such state must have accepted the jurisdiction of the relevant committee.

The jurisdiction of the committees is established by two means: one by bringing separate optional protocols on the complaint procedures to the existing human rights treaties and second by inserting inherent Articles in the treaties which provide for the complaint mechanisms. In first case, a state party must become party to an Optional Protocol to accept the committee’s competence and in later case, a state party must recognise the committee’s competence by making a declaration under a specific article of the treaty.

According to a publication of Office of High Commission of Human Rights (OHCHR), “[f]or the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, States recognise the committees’ competence by becoming a party to their optional protocols, i.e., separate treaties adopted to complement the provisions of each of the above-mentioned covenants and conventions. For the Convention against Torture, the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families, and the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, States recognise the committees’ competence by making a declaration to that effect under a specific article of these conventions”.

Good news is that Pakistan is party to seven out of nine core human rights treaties except from the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance and the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families. However, bad news is that it has not accepted competence of any of these treaty committees leaving no room for all those human rights victims to approach treaty bodies who have exhausted all the existing remedies in Pakistan.

The human rights status in Pakistan is worrying, and the need of the hour is to generate strong discourse and activism around this crucial matter. Civil society should play its role in this regard. We really need to see our Sate being party to the such complaint mechanism. Our national level remedial mechanisms are too weak to provide complete justice and remedies to the victims of human rights violations especially of those which occur at hands of state institutions.

The state institutions in Pakistan meant to provide or help in providing remedies to the victims of human rights portray murky picture. Police being important agency of criminal justice system, have not only failed to completely protect human rights but also it has continuously been infringing human rights by practicing custodial torture, showing insensitivity to the gendered issues and female victims, and supporting human rights violators in some cases. On the other hand, the departments of administrative justice such as Women Development and Social Welfare are unfortunately stained with inexpediency. The protection mechanism established by them such as shelter houses and women crises centres have proved inability to deliver due to political pressure formed by elitist and feudalistic political culture, social hindrances caused by patriarchal gender norms, corrupt bureaucracy and shortage of human and financial resources in some cases.

Furthermore, the National Human Rights Institutions are yet into formative phases and are struggling to deliver amidst insufficient resources and strong barriers hooked by the bureaucracy. A final resort for human rights victim — judiciary — is also packed with a large number of pending cases leaving little room for the victims to seek speedy justice.

Thus, such situation underlines the importance of access to United Nations’ treaty body individual complaint system, which is only possible when Pakistan becomes party to the treaty body-based individual complaint system provided by seven core treaties it has ratified. At this stage, it calls for development of serious discourse and activism around this matter at the end civil society so that political will could be generated within the relevant institutions of the state in this regard.

The writer holds Mastersdegree in Human Rights and Democratisation from the University of Sydney

Published in Daily Times, August 4^th 2017.