The Asian Human Rights Commission welcomes the ratification of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention against Torture, Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment by the President of Pakistan. This is a very important step in the struggle of the human rights of all the citizens of the country. We therefore urge that all officers of the state and civil service, the police and the military be given the opportunities for education on these two human rights instruments.
As the proper implementation of the obligations of Pakistan by this ratification will depend on the political will of the government the parliamentarians should also be provided with opportunities for studying the implications of these documents and how to speedily implement these obligations.
Pakistan’s signing of this covenant and convention has come quite late. Many other countries have ratified these instruments many decades ago. Therefore Pakistan now has to catch up with the developments that have been made in other countries, which include many of her neighbours, relating to the obligations under these two human rights instruments.
The most important responsibility that arises from the ratification of the two UN instruments is to bring the obligations into the domestic law. Several of the laws in Pakistan will need to be restudied and many legal amendments will have to made to the country’s laws in order to bring them into conformity with the undertakings of these two instruments. Of primary importance are the obligations to the protection of life. It is a well known fact that due to various conflicts that persist in the country in the recent decades the level of extrajudicial killings has increased enormously. Therefore one of the primary obligations of the state now is to find ways to ensure accountability in all matters relating to the protection of the right to life, particularly regarding the prevention of extrajudicial killings. The means by which this obligation should be carried out will be the pivotal point around which the new obligations ratified by the signing of these documents should be discussed.
It is also quite well known that in Pakistan torture prevails both in police and military custody. The primary method by which crimes are investigated is still the use of torture and in almost all police stations torture takes place daily. Dealing with this issue by the development of the police force will now be one of the main obligations of the state. Civil society and human rights organisations must now take greater interest in the attempt to eliminate the use of torture within the policing system. If Pakistan can develop its policing system based on modern policing philosophies and methodologies, the country will make a great leap towards becoming a nation based on the rule of law and democracy.
The signing of UN instruments and putting them into practice are two completely different matters. Many lessons can be learned from countries which have ratified these instruments but have not yet taken any steps towards the protection of human rights. Article 2 of the ICCPR obligates all countries which have ratified the covenant to bring about legislative, judicial and administrative measures in order to ensure the implementation of the obligations undertaken by the state.
Already the former Secretary General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, announced that the time of the articulation of human rights has been completed and now is the time for implementation. In the implementation of human rights there are many practical issues to be dealt with. Foremost among which is one of the most primary obligations to allocate adequate funding for the development of the system of administration of justice so that it is able to perform its tasks in a manner required under the international obligations and also under the obligations under the domestic law itself. As long as the system of the administration of justice remains in a backward state, primarily because adequate funding is not provided for the institutions of justice which are the police, the prosecution systems and the judiciary, the people of Pakistan will not be able to enjoy human rights. Therefore, it is the obligation of the parliament to allocate adequate funds for the administration of justice. On the other hand it is the duty of the civil society organisations, the media and the human rights organisations in particular to constantly monitor the performance of the way in which the state performs its obligations under these conventions.
The signing of these two instruments should bring enormous benefits to the people of the country. It is now for the people themselves to take the initiative to ask whether their government will ensure that these rights which accrue to them through these international instruments when they are realised within their country.
