Empower this one, please
The Senate on Friday did a commendable job by unanimously adopting a bill seeking the establishment of a national commission on human rights, incorporating various clauses to enlarge the scope of the legislation carried out by the National Assembly a few months ago.
The bill was moved by Leader of the House Nayyar Bukhari after it was thoroughly examined and vetted by a Senate committee comprising prominent legal and constitutional experts which had proposed key amendments aimed at making the commission more powerful, impartial and free from political interference. The bill will now be referred to the NA for its re-endorsement before being sent to the president for final assent.
The commission to be headed by an individual qualified to be appointed a member of the superior judiciary with sufficient human rights expertise will have Chairperson on the National Commission on the Status of Women and a minority representative as its members.
The government might have been compelled to expedite the process to meet a criterion set by the UN under which all member states are bound to constitute such commissions and furnish reports on the state of human rights to the world body without hiding any aspect.
That the proposed commission will be empowered to entertain complaints of human rights violations against members of the armed forces and their intelligence agencies is indeed welcome. There, however, remains an obvious lapse on the part of the senate committee which has suggested only a recommendatory role for the commission while leaving it to the government to decide whether or not to take any action against the culprits.
The bill was passed at a time when the people have been protesting against enforced disappearances across the country. But the proposed commission may not be able to achieve the desired objectives unless the ruling political leadership takes concrete measures to rein in the military’s intelligence apparatus involved in human rights violations.