Bypassing NCHR: ‘Plan’ for parallel rights body upsets Senate committee

PM’s aide on human rights denies that any such summary was sent to premier

ISLAMABAD: A senate panel has expressed serious reservations over setting up of a parallel human rights body under the executive and termed it an attempt to undermine the National Commission on Human Rights (NCHR), established in 2012 for the protection and promotion of human rights.

The NCHR was created through an act of parliament as independent body whose chairman and members are selected by a bipartisan parliamentary committee.

The issue came up before the Senate Human Rights Committee on Wednesday after a motion moved by the PPP Senator Farhatullah Babar in December last year was referred by the Senate to the committee for examination and report.

Babar said an official communication of the PM House last week revealed of a national human rights action plan and establishment of another human rights body for which Rs400 million were requested to be allocated.

“Parliament will resist manoeuvres undermining the NCHR,” Babar said as he called for transferring the Rs400 million to the Special National Human Rights Commission Fund stipulated under the law to enable it perform its functions.

He said the government on the one hand flaunts the NCHR before the European Union for extracting benefits under the GSP Plus and on the other hand it has set out on a course to secretly undermine the commission. “This duality and hypocrisy will boomerang on the government,” he warned.

“It is now quite clear why ever since its establishment the NCHR was made dysfunctional by denying it funds,” Babar said, as he questioned commitment of the government towards human rights issues.

He said under clause 9 (k) of the NCHR law, it is responsibility of the commission to develop “a national plan of action for the promotion and protection of human rights” and this function could not be usurped by the executive. “The façade of another national human rights action plan drawn up secretly is an assault on the commission and a bid to undo it,” he said.

He said it appeared that the prime minister had been misled on the issue. Babar also demanded copy of the summary on which the prime minister approved proposal to transfer the work of NCHR illegally to the human rights ministry.

The NCHR Chairman Ali Nawaz Chohan informed the committee that the decision was taken without taking him on board.  “It seems there is a conspiracy behind this move. There are some forces, which have vested interest to abolish this forum,” he said.

Special Assistant to PM on Human Rights Barrister Zafarullah Khan, however, denied that any such summary was sent to the prime minister.  He claimed that the government was committed to promoting the NCHR.

Minister of Climate Change Zahid Hamid also assured the committee that government would not abolish the body, adding that he would look into this matter personally. “Don’t get the impression that government is going to abolish it. I assure you that we have no such plan,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 18^th, 2016.