Pakistan

Lahore high court chief justice orders to remove words blind, deaf from Constitution

Directs authorities to replace it with special persons

Correspondent January 16, 2018

Lahore High Court Chief Justice Mansoor Ali Shah. PHOTO COURTESY: LHC

LAHORE: Chief Justice Lahore High Court Syed Mansoor Ali Shah on Tuesday ordered to remove words 'blind' 'deaf', 'unable to hear, or 'lame' used for disabled persons in the Constitution and ordered them to be referred as 'special persons'.

The CJ gave the order while hearing a petition filed seeking direction to remove aforementioned words in the Constitution, which according to the petitioner are improper words and tantamount to damage their honour.

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The petitioner had contended that these special persons are part of the society and "it will be unjust if these words are not removed from law which affects their grace."

He implored that it is against moral values if we refer to them with the words mentioned above and asked the court to remove these words from the Constitution so that the society could avoid calling them from these words.

The CJ said these words should be removed from the Ordinance 1981 and these persons would be called special persons from now on.

COMMENTS (1)

Benjamin Pyke | 6 years ago | Reply Is this something that blind and deaf people in Pakistan wanted themselves, or is it a misguided and unwanted attempt to be politically correct? In most other countries, the Deaf community in particular generally reject euphemistic language such as "hearing impaired" and regard it as MORE offensive, not less. I'm curious if this is also the case in Pakistan.

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