May 15, 2007	Tuesday	Rabi-us-Sani 27, 1428

ISLAMABAD, May 14: As many as 74 Criminal Justice Coordination Committees out of a total of 110 established in every district of the country under the Police Order 2002 were found to be either inactive or working in violation of the prescribed procedure.

According to a monitoring report compiled by the National Reconstruction Bureau assessing the performance of the committees over the last 30 months as an administrative tool, the committees have failed to achieve their objectives, i.e. highlighting the problem areas in the criminal justice system at the district level, finding resolutions to the problems and monitoring their implementation.

Every committee, consisting of seven members, the District and Sessions Judge as its chairperson, Head of District Police, District Public Prosecutor, District Superintendent Jail, District Probation Officer, District Parole Officer and Head of Investigation as its secretary, was meant to hold monthly meetings to create a forum for sharing of information and highlighting of issues between different relevant government departments so as to ensure a constant improvement of the criminal justice system and resultant higher level of administration.

As per the assessment criterion laid down in the monitoring report, district committees that had been sending the minutes of the meetings regularly to the National Implementation Body that has federal interior secretary, all provincial chief secretaries and all provincial police officers as its members, constituted by the National Reconstruction Bureau in 2004 to ensure uniformity and monitoring of the progress of the implementation of the new police order, were considered active districts. In 2004, out of a total of 110 districts in the country only 63 active Criminal Justice Coordination Committees operated according to the provisions of the Police Order 2002. This number reduced to 48 in 2005 and then to 36 active districts in 2006. The percentage of complying districts instead of increasing has declined from 63.4 per cent in 2004 to 32.7 per cent in 2006 instead of increasing.

Punjab, the most active province in this regard, had 30 out of a total of 34 districts having functional Criminal Justice Coordination Committees in 2004. Out of a total of 35 districts, the compliance number went down to 21 in 2005 and then to 14 in 2006. In Sindh, there were a total number of 16 districts in 2004 and the number of districts having active coordination committees was nine. In 2005, the total districts were 23 whereas the complying districts were six and that number was five in 2006. There were 27 districts in Balochistan out of which only five had functional Criminal Justice Coordination Committees in 2004. The compliance rate remained zero in the succeeding two years with no active district. The number of active districts in the NWFP was 19 out of a total of 24 in 2004. There were 21 districts in 2005 and 17 in 2006.

The Article 110 of the Police Order 2002 made it mandatory for all members of the committee to take part in the monthly meetings but the monitoring report of the National Reconstruction Bureau drew a drastic picture of the interest of the members in the committees. In 2004, not a single district had all seven members’ participation in Criminal Justice Coordination Committees meetings whereas in 2005 and in 2006 this number improved to only 2 per cent and 2.9 per cent respectively of the districts having all members’ participation. The majority of the meetings averaged between three to five participating members in all active districts in the country. According to the monitoring report, in all meetings between 2004 and 2006 the guests were present in 94.3 per cent of the meetings.