ISLAMABAD: Chief Justice of Pakistan Asif Saeed Khosa has been requested to consider facilitating visually impaired persons by allowing them to furnish documents or applications before the Supreme Court in Braille.

The CJP’s attention has been drawn through a letter by Additional Advocate General (AAG) for Punjab Faisal Fareed Chaudhry, who is representing the province before the Supreme Court in a case relating to the rights of disabled people in Pakistan.

Currently, there is no provision under the Supreme Court Rules, 1980, to accept any documents or applications in Braille (tactile writing system for the visually impaired persons), which sometimes creates an impediment for the physically challenged persons.

The issue of disability first came to the attention of the Supreme Court in May 2014 when then chief justice Tassaduq Hussain Jillani asked the federal as well as provincial governments to answer a number of questions.

The questions were raised in a joint petition moved to highlight the lack of enforcement of constitutional rights being denied to the people with disabilities, unavailability of reliable statistics about them, provision of education to them, scarce employment opportunities, accessibility of buildings and public transport, information, voting rights, etc.

Later, another petition was moved before the Supreme Court, seeking an order for the federal government to ensure collection of information about the persons with disabilities in the national population census by ensuring their proper identification, documentation of impairments and categorisation of the type, cause, duration and severity of the disability.

Now the Punjab AAG has again invited the attention of the CJP to the handicap being faced by the physically challenged people by writing a letter.

“The idea came to my mind when certain documents were submitted before the Supreme Court early this month in connection with the disability case,” recalled AAG Chaudhry while talking to Dawn.

Along with these reports some documents were furnished in Braille, but the SC registrar office refused to accept the same on the grounds that there was no provision in the prevailing rules to accept any document which was in that format, the AAG recalled.

This prompted him to write the letter to the CJP, stating that he felt constrained to highlight the issue when the registrar office regretted to accept the documents prepared in the Braille format, to facilitate the visually impaired petitioners who happened to be the parties to the constitutional petition (disability) pending adjudication before the apex court.

Surprisingly, the issue relates to the enforcement of laws dealing with the affairs of the disabled, the letter stated.

The letter highlighted that all over the world the disabled persons were treated exceptionally and facilitated by adopting extraordinary measures. “Therefore, it is requested to kindly consider the matter on humanitarian grounds and allow the submission of documents prepared in the Braille format by bringing suitable amendments to the Supreme Court Rules, 1980,” it added.

In addition, it also seemed appropriate to allow the usage of modern formats such as sign language, when required, during the hearing/proceedings in the Supreme Court to facilitate the persons who were not blessed with the hearing and talking senses/abilities, the letter said, requesting the CJP to consider the matter in a manner deemed apt.

Published in Dawn, April 27th, 2019