Objections: Police contest powers of human rights dept

If there can be drug and anti-corruption courts, why not human rights courts

Umer Farooq November 27, 2016

Ashraf said work was underway to prepare draft of a law against ‘honour’ killings and on juvenile justice and torture. PHOTO: REUTERS

PESHAWAR: Irked by ‘repeated complaints’ filed on behalf of members of the transgender community, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa police challenged the jurisdiction of the provincial Human Rights Directorate (HRD).

The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Promotion, Protection and Enforcement of Human Rights Directorate was set up in 2014 and has since then resolved hundreds of domestic issues.

The objections were raised in a letter sent to the directorate on October 13.

Officials of the directorate were irritated when police’s legal section wrote that it could seek information from any agency, authority or government organisation, but there were no rules for summoning a police officer.

Police requested that instead of serving notices on SHOs, reports should be sought because sometimes they could not attend the directorate proceedings, the reply sent by the AIG Legal department stated.

Pointing out that the government had authorised the directorate to summon even the chief executive of the province, a senior official of the directorate stated: “The directorate is being obstructed in delivery of justice and resolving public issues.”

“I wonder how anyone can resolve any issue when parties concerned cannot be summoned,” the official said.

According to him, most complaints were filed against the police department but it never cooperated.

The official stated that the directorate had been established to lessen the burden on courts, but the situation was completely different.

He also pointed out that human rights NGOs were supposed to be registered with the directorate, but none had done so thus far.

Officials of the directorate stated that a huge number of complaints had been filed against government departments and a majority of them were against police but none cooperated with the directorate.

He said most of the complaints had been filed against SHOs. Stressing the need for independence of the directorate, he said that it should not be subordinate to the provincial law department. “If there can be drug and anti-corruption courts, why not human rights courts,” said the official.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 28^th, 2016.