ISLAMABAD, Oct 18: The technical committee of the Access to Justice Programme (AJP), Ministry of Law, Justice and Human Rights has approved five schemes that would cost Rs31.65 million for the promotion of the country’s legal and judicial system.

The projects were approved here on Wednesday at a meeting presided over by Justice (retired) Mansoor Ahmed, federal secretary law and justice. Representatives of the Finance Division, and Planning and Development Division also attended the meeting.

Programme director AJP Mohammad Afzal Kahut briefing the committee about the significance of the schemes said the schemes included basic computer orientation training for district judges and officers, development of the web portal and web based monitoring and evaluation, and automation of software for Access to Justice Programme (AIP), public awareness on new initiatives under the Police Order 2002, annual Judicial Conference, and capacity building of the National Public Safety Commission (NPSC) for policing plans.

He said these schemes would be implemented by the AJP, National Police Bureau (NPB) and the Law and Justice Commission of Pakistan (LJCP).

He said four domestic consulting firms would be hired for each province to train 1,848 selected officers of the district judiciary who would benefit from the training during a period of six months. About 122 training workshops would be conducted and consultants in each province would provide consulting services to 104 persons for six months.

He said the web portal of the AJP would also include content management system and complaint handling system. Besides, providing easy access to information and policy documents, the web portal would provide speedy remedy and redressal to the complaints from the common people.

He said the public awareness campaign on Police Order 2002 would inform and educate the public particularly the vulnerable sections of the society of their rights and the new initiatives that government of Pakistan has taken under the order.

Thus, it would lead towards greater police-public cooperation.

He said the annual Judicial Conference would provide an opportunity to the participants from the justice sector institutions to learn from the experiences of each other and adopt the best practices of their counterparts across the country.

Dr Muhammad Shoaib Suddle, director general, NPB, Habib-ur-Rehman, joint secretary of the LJCP and the representatives of the AJP were present to defend their schemes.