THE very raison d’être for the existence of a monitoring body is negated when it lacks autonomy. That is why human rights activists are demanding that the government withdraw its notification about bringing the National Commission of Human Rights under the control of the federal ministry of human rights. At a press conference in Karachi on Friday, civil society representatives said that the body was conceived as an independent entity when it was established in May 2015. To deprive it of its autonomy, they added, will be a violation of the NCHR Act 2012 that mandates independent commissions to oversee the state’s performance vis-à-vis human rights and present recommendations in the light of their own findings. Speakers also highlighted the government’s repeated interference in the NCHR’s work. The notification has reportedly been triggered by an incident when an NCHR member “embarrassed” an MNA by contradicting her while she was discussing terrorism-related issues during an official visit to the US.

All governments, particularly those in countries with zero or minimal accountability, like nothing more than monitoring bodies that check their performance in name only. Otherwise they might be confronted with a situation such as that in the US this April when the Pakistani government delegation was left rather red-faced before the UN Committee on Torture. The delegation’s report posited that Pakistan was now virtually free of torture and various other indignities — in short, that it had become something of a human rights utopia. As anyone familiar with events in this country knows well, that is far from the truth. The NCHR, as well as a number of Pakistani and international NGOs, presented shadow reports that contradicted the official stance in almost every respect. They dilated upon the ways in which the state complied with neither its own laws nor its international obligations that are meant to protect human rights. The government must realise that independent monitoring bodies are an essential feature of democracy. They are not the problem: the government’s performance is.

Published in Dawn, May 22nd, 2017