The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) moved the Supreme Court (SC) to review an order disposing off a petition filed in 2007 for recovery of a large number of victims of enforced disappearance.
On May 18, the SC had disposed off, through a short order, HRCP’s constitutional petition regarding enforced disappearance of citizens filed in 2007. The court observed that the petitioner could pursue the matter before a commission established to deal with the issue of missing persons.
HRCP is of the view that the short order did not address the grievances cited in the petition and has therefore filed for a review. HRCP contended that the jurisdiction of the honourable court under Article 184 (3) could not be replaced by a commission, whose majority comprises non-judicial authorities, especially since the matter raised was of public importance and clearly involved violation of fundamental rights, the enforcement of which fell squarely within the jurisdiction of the honourable Supreme Court.
HRCP highlighted that 47 people on the list it submitted to the SC were still untraced and their families had not been given any access to the commission set up by the government of Pakistan.
HRCP also noted that during hearings before the SC over a period of six years, a number of disappeared persons on the list submitted by HRCP were produced in court and had given statements regarding their illegal abduction and confinement and made allegations against security forces. HRCP further noted that the court had also not as yet rendered a detailed judgment on an important matter of violation of fundamental rights, pending before it for the last six years, nor on the several hearings it had held and several statements it had recorded during the proceedings of the case over the last six years, which clearly identified the perpetrators of enforced disappearances.
HRCP said its petition included a prayer for compensation for those who had involuntarily disappeared and reappeared, but the question of compensation did not find any mention in the judgment.
