Daily Times

The Juvenile Justice System Act (JJSA) 2018 was approved by the President of Pakistan on May 18 2018. This JJSA 2018, is upgraded version of JJSO 2000, which provides a much better system for criminal justice and social reintegration for juvenile offenders. Within the JJSA 2018 Act the definition of a child and according to the definition of UNCRC is ‘a person who has not attained the age of eighteen years’. Importantly, several changes were made in this JJSA 2018, however, so far sadly the federal as well as the provincial governments have not taken any step to implement some of the important provisions related to setting up of juvenile rehabilitation centres, observation homes and juvenile justice committees. Mainly, province Sindh is far behind on these provisions.

Just to highlight for my readers that, Pakistan is also a signatory to the Convention on the Rights of Child. Article 37 of the CRC states, No child shall be subjected to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. Neither capital punishment nor life imprisonment without possibility of release shall be imposed for offences committed by persons below eighteen years of age; (b) No child shall be deprived of his or her liberty unlawfully or arbitrarily. The arrest, detention or imprisonment of a child shall be in conformity with the law and shall be used only as a measure of last resort and for the shortest appropriate period of time (c) Every child deprived of liberty shall be treated with humanity and respect for the inherent dignity of the human person, and in a manner which takes into account the needs of persons of his or her age. In particular, every child deprived of liberty shall be separated from adults unless it is considered in the child’s best interest not to do so and shall have the right to maintain contact with his or her family through correspondence and visits, save in exceptional circumstances; (d) Every child deprived of his or her liberty shall have the right to prompt access to legal and other appropriate assistance, as well as the right to challenge the legality of the deprivation of his or her liberty before a court or other competent, independent and impartial authority, and to a prompt decision on any such action.

Within the JJSA 2018, it is categorically written that the investigation of a juvenile, shall not be interrogated by a police officer below the rank of a sub-inspector and the investigation officer designated shall be assisted by a probation officer or by a social welfare officer notified by the Government to prepare social investigation report to be annexed with the report prepared under section 173 of the Cr.P.C. The JJSO was silent on these distinctions. However, practically here in Sindh, things are worst, the juvenile is being interrogated by the lowest rank of police official and no one bothers.

Under section 5 of the JJSA which is very important to understand that the arrest of a juvenile offender requires specific mandatory steps to be followed by the officer in charge of the police station:

i) after the arrest, the juvenile offender shall be kept in an observation home;

ii) the guardian and the concerned probation officer shall be informed as soon as possible, and

iii) the police-report prepared shall describe the steps to be taken to refer the matter to the Juvenile Justice Committee for disposal through diversion.

Section 2(p) of the JJSA defines ‘observation home’ as a place where a juvenile shall be kept temporarily after the arrest, on remand, or during any inquiry or investigation. Although the definition is not very specific about the place that may be called an ‘observation home’, the purpose of this ‘home’ is obvious: that child offenders should not be mixed with adulaat offenders at any stage, even for a small amount of time. In other words, a juvenile offender shall not be detained in an ordinary police station after his arrest but shall be kept in an observation home. The Act aims to establish juvenile justice committees in each district, which shall dispose of cases, with the consent of the accused by resorting to different modes of diversion including: restitution of movable property, reparation of the damage caused, written or oral apology, participation in community service, payments of fine and costs of the proceedings, placement in Juvenile Rehabilitation Centre, and written and oral reprimand. In Sindh, no such committee has been formed till now.

It is clearly mentioned in the JJS Act of 2018 that the government in consultation with the concerned high court will establish or designate juvenile court for one or more sessions divisions within a period of three months from the commencement of this Act. But separate juvenile courts are still not established in Province Sindh.

“Juvenile offenders are maltreated and sexually abused in prisons, because of no proper monitoring of juvenile cells and not establishing separate jails for juveniles”

If these all sections of JJSA 2018 are implemented, then in a long way it will re-integrating delinquent juveniles into society and improving Pakistan’s compliance with international human rights standards. However, all this depends on proper implementation of this JJSA. Lack of implementation of key provisions of JJSA 2018 will ultimately render the legislation ineffective and will deprive young offenders from their constitutional right of fair trial.

Recently for working on JJSA 2018, Marvi Rural Development Organization- MRDO and Legal Awareness Watch- LAW organized a forum in District Sukkur for different stakeholders, including police, probation department, lawyers, civil society activist and community representatives participated and shared their views on the implementation of JJSA 2018 in Sindh. These both organizations on humanitarian grounds recently took 02- cases of juvenile offenders who are kept in Khairpur and Sukkur jails.

Saira Ahmed from MRDO said, “Due to the absence of documentary proof and a centralised database, it is a common practice that while registering a FIR, the police arbitrarily record the age of young offenders. This shows that the police tend to hastily and incorrectly record the age of an offender at the first instance and usually claim that a juvenile is an adult. Importantly, Pakistan has also consistently failed to set up juvenile courts, borstal institutions and provisions for effective legal aid for juveniles as provided under, first the JJSO and now JJSA.

Saira further said, “Juvenile offenders are maltreated and sexually abused in prisons, because of no proper monitoring of juvenile cells and not establishing separate jails for juveniles. The JJS Act of 2018 says that the government shall establish and maintain observation homes and juvenile rehabilitation centres for reception of juveniles, including separate centres for female juveniles. Not a single observation home and juvenile rehabilitation centre has been established or certified so far”.

Sarmad Ali Advocate and executive director LAW that “Juvenile Justice System demands due rights to be given and ensured to all juveniles who comes in conflict with law-starting from the time of arrest until the completion of trial. The problem within Pakistan is that there is no direct and complete procedure available for age determination of arrested person. The age determination has to be done at the earliest stage such as during physical remand proceedings by the police investigation officer. The police officers/investigation officers intentionally or unintentionally do not treat an arrested person as juvenile if that appears to be juvenile in order to avoid their duties rising under the JJSA 2018”.

Lastly, I want to request Prime Minister, Imran Khan, and President, Dr Arif Alvi, who assured in their inaugural speeches that resolving the child protection issues and implementation of child rights and national action plan for children are one of their top priorities. Hence, the PTI government should take up the matter of implementation of the JJS Act of 2018 on a priority basis and must allocate a sufficient budget and resources for this cause.

The writer is a social and political activist. He can be reached at salmanali088@gmail.com and Tweets at @Salmani_salu