ISLAMABAD: The Human Rights Committee of the Senate on Wednesday adopted the Criminal Law (Amendment) Bill 2015 that was meant to provide protection to children.
The bill was adopted after some discussion on whether amendments to the Pakistan Penal Code were a federal or a provincial subject after passage of the 18th Amendment and whether the provinces had been consulted on the matter.
The committee took up for consideration the Actions in Aid of Civil Power Regulation 2011 to see the implications of its implementation. The representative of the SAFRON said that his ministry was concerned only with the legislation and its implementation was the responsibility of law enforcement agencies. However, the committee decided that SAFRON as the lead ministry should seek the views of the concerned ministries on the implementation of the regulation and inform the committee at its next meeting. It directed the SAFRON minister to attend the next meeting of the committee.
Senator Farhatullah Babar said the minister should come prepared to the next meeting with answers to some specific questions. The specific questions, he said, pertained to the number of those detained with effect from February 1, 2008, the date from which the 2011 regulation was given retroactive effect. He said the minister should inform the committee about the status of the cases against those detained, those who had been convicted or acquitted and those who had filed appeals. He said the minister should tell the committee whether their cases were in the military courts, anti-terrorism courts or ordinary courts.
He asked whether the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa governor had conferred any additional powers upon the armed forces or amended the schedule to the regulation, or delegated his powers to any officer, and what powers delegated and to whom, as provided in the regulation itself.
The regulation binds the government to set up oversight boards, he said. He asked whether such oversight boards had been set up to periodically review the conditions of internment centres and take notice of complaints of degrading treatment and torture of the detainees. He asked whether the federal government had notified rules, which it was supposed to make to implement the regulation. The representative of the SAFRON said the ministry would answer these questions at the next meeting.
Babar took up the issue of disappearance of human rights activist Rizwan Niazi from Faisalabad in November 2015. About 20-30 people wearing Elite Force uniforms allegedly picked him up. Babar also took up the complaint of a woman from Balochistan who accused a law enforcement agency of keeping her two sons in custody since February 2014 without any legal proceedings against them. According to the woman, her sons had been detained allegedly at the behest of a powerful politician. After some discussion, the committee decided to refer both the cases to the National Commission on Human Rights for investigation and action.
Babar recalled that the Senate, acting as a committee on the whole on legal reforms, had taken up the issue of forced disappearances last month. The Senate directed the government to give its views on the recommendations made some time ago by the Human Rights Committee on how to address the issue of forced disappearances. He said that legislation to bring the state agencies under some oversight was also part of the recommendations. Until an institutional mechanism to address forced disappearances is worked out, he said, these individual cases of missing persons should be referred to the NCHR. The committee endorsed this view and referred the cases to the commission.
