Judicial consultation: ‘Educate people on their constitutional rights’

Prime minister’s special assistant says parliament is considering legislation to prevent forced conversions.

LAHORE:

Justice (r) Tassaduq Husain Jillani on Saturday stressed the need to educate the people on their constitutional rights. He said it was the responsibility of the state to ensure that the minority communities were able to exercise rights promised to them under the constitution.

Jillani was chairing a session on Rights of Religious Minorities at the opening day of a two-day regional judicial consultation on the Role of Judiciary in Enforcing Human Rights in South Asia.

He said four articles in the constitution that dealt with rights of the minorities. He said the lack of will in the political leadership was to be blamed for their non-implementation.

Barrister Zafar Ullah, a special assistant to the prime minister, said the government was working towards bringing about improvements in the situation of women’s and children’s rights in the country. He said the parliament was considering a legislation to prevent incidents of forced conversions of Hindu girls reported from Sindh. The establishment of a national commission on protection of child rights could be helpful in this regard, he said. He added that the commission could be empowered to prevent child marriages.

Human Rights Commission of Pakistan director IA Rehman criticised the attitude of courts in cases involving child marriages and forced conversions in the country. He said the courts had been unable to deliver justice in such cases.

Indian jurist Colin Gonsalves addressed the conference about controversies surrounding secularism and law in India. He said courts in India were under pressure from religious parties and state officials. This, he said, was affecting their performance in public interest litigations.

Support system for women stressed:

National Commission on the Status of Women chairperson Khawar Mumtaz stressed the need for social support systems for women to improve their political and economic conditions. She was speaking at the last session of the day on issues pertaining to sexual abuse, forced conversions and domestic violence against women.

The two-day regional consultation has been organised by the South Asia Partnership –Pakistan (SAP-PK) and the Institute of Labour Education and Research (PILER).

Published in The Express Tribune, April 12^th, 2015.