Daily Times

LAHORE: Supreme Court on Monday ordered compliance of the judgment on minorities’ rights and called chief secretaries and secretaries of ministries to appear before a court today.

The Supreme Court (SC) bench headed Justice Saqib Nisar, while consisting of Justice Ijaz-ul-Ahsan and Justice Umer Ata Bandial held a hearing in Lahore registry on an application filed by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), Centre for Social Justice (CSJ), Cecil and Iris Chaudhry Foundation (CICF) and AGHS Legal aid cell that asked for implementation of the judgment given by a bench of the Supreme Court of Pakistan headed by Chief Justice Tassaduq Jillani on June 19, 2014.

The court inquired about status of three out of the seven specific directives given to provincial and federal governments for protection of religious minorities that include constituting a taskforce for developing a strategy of religious tolerance, developing curricula at school and college levels to promote a culture of religious and social tolerance and taking  steps against hate speech on social media

The applicants contended that the compliance has not yet been implemented e.g. the task force has not been formed, religious and sectarian hate speech has not been removed from the curriculum (textbooks) and social media.

Chief Justice expressed dissatisfaction over the status of compliance (non-compliance) and ordered that Chief Secretaries of all provinces and secretaries of concerned ministries should present themselves for next hearing on June 28, 2018 in Islamabad.

Executive Director of Centre for Social Justice Peter Jacob expressed satisfaction over the resumption of the implementation bench.

He said: “We are thankful to the Supreme Court for looking into our application and expect that the executive branch will pay attention to an early implementation on the orders of the Supreme Court’’.

“Religious discrimination and intolerance has been lingering in our society and state system for long time. It is time that we make it past for our country,” he added.

The application prepared by Advocate Saqib Jillani elaborates that the directives largely lacked implementation although four years have passed.

The application refers to the study carried out by the Centre for Social Justice, “When compliance fails Justice”, cited frequently in the petition alongside other evidence of non-compliance of the aforementioned Supreme Court orders.