ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court has conveyed to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry had expressed his inability to receive the UN Working Group visiting the country presently on enforced missing persons.

Through a letter dated 10.9.2012 of this court, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was informed that as the cases of missing persons were pending before the Supreme Court, therefore, propriety demanded that the chief justice may not discuss the matter which was sub judice.

“Therefore, regrets were conveyed to the Ministry expressing the inability of the Honourable Chief Justice of Pakistan to receive the UN Delegation,” the letter stated.

The mandate of the UN team that arrived on Sunday is to collect data about the ‘missing’ persons.

During its 10-day mission undertaken at the invitation of the government, the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances will study the measures adopted by Pakistan to prevent and eradicate enforced disappearances and issues related to truth, justice and reparation for the victims.

The delegation, comprising Olivier de Frouville, the Chair-Rapporteur, and Osman El Hajjé, member, was being accompanied by members of the secretariat of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

The delegation was scheduled to visit various parts of the country and meet officials, representatives of civil society organisations and UN agencies and relatives of disappeared people.

The working group was set up by the UN Commission on Human Rights in 1980 to assist families in determining the fate and whereabouts of disappeared relatives. It endeavours to establish a channel of communication between the families and the governments concerned, to ensure that individual cases are investigated, with the objective of clarifying the whereabouts of persons who, having disappeared, are placed outside the protection of law. A final report on the mission will be presented to the UN Human Rights Council next year. — APP/DawnNews