The Supreme Court has directed the Federal Ministry of Law, Justice and Human Rights to form a regulatory framework along with enforcement mechanisms to curb the rampant menace of erroneous law books by the of this month.
A three-member bench headed by Justice Jawwad S. Khawaja comprising of two other Judges namely Justice Sarmad Jalal Osmany and Justice Maqbool Baqar, issued certain directions in the case regarding errors in printing/publication of law books.
It said that the Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) experts should be appointed by March 13 in the Federal and by March 14 in the Provincial Law Departments of Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Sindh. Punjab has already nominated such an expert.
These experts shall submit M&E framework to the Law and Justice Commission of Pakistan (LJCP) for monitoring the activities and deadlines committed and shall submit monthly progress report through LJCP to the Supreme Court of Pakistan.
The Federal Ministry of Law and the Provincial Law Departments were also directed to ensure accurate, verified, certified to be true, and reliable publication and reproduction of laws, as per directions already given in an order dated January 28, 2015.
The court also asked Ministry of Law to issue general public notice warning the authors/printers/publishers that they may be proceeded against for the defects in publication and legal actions against the offenders shall be initiated.
The court directed the ministry to take steps for the translation of Federal and Provincial Laws into the national language. For this purpose a teams of translators shall be arranged and the assistance and the staff of National and Provincial Assemblies shall be engaged along with independent translators.
