LHC orders legislation on children’s rights

Petitioner seeks directions to govts to further expand rights of children

LAHORE:

Justice Jawad Hassan of the Lahore High Court’s Rawalpindi Bench directed the quarters concerned to make proper legislation on children’s fundamental rights in the light of the relevant provisions of the Federal Rules of Business 1973 and the Punjab Government Rules of Business 2011.

He was hearing a plea filed by Zafar Khizer to ensure provision of basic/fundamental rights to the children of the country.

Justice Hassan, in his judgment issued on Wednesday, said that “if proper legislation already holds the field then ensure its enforcement and further formulate a national policy on such rights under the Rules, after carefully going through the respective laws, by conducting surveys in the relevant fields and also taking restrictive steps for the malnourishment/malnutrition in the child citizens and then ensure implementation of the said policy in true sense”.

The petitioner had sought directions to both the federal as well as the provincial governments to declare the fundamental rights of children, including the right to nutritious food, the right to proper development and the right to education, as an unqualified right and to further expand the said rights in the light of the provisions of Articles 4, 9, 14, 25-A and 38 of the Constitution.

The petitioner’s counsel, Muhammad Ahmad Pansota, submitted before the court that the petitioner being an overseas Pakistani had done a lot of work through a non-profit organization for protection of children’s rights, and he had approached this court to highlight the indifference, lassitude and inaction of the respondents towards the country’s children who are the future of the country and who deserved strict protection of their fundamental rights as guaranteed/protected under the Constitution.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 19^th, 2023.