ISLAMABAD, Dec 15: Chairperson National Commission on the Status of Women (NCSW) Justice Majida Rizvi has demanded more powers for the commission so that it could ensure implementation of its recommendations.

Speaking at a press conference on Monday, she said at present, the commission could only make recommendations but had no powers to enforce their implementations.

The NCSW with the help of the ministry of women development will soon send its recommendations to the government for making the commission more effective.

She said the commission was also opening its offices in the provincial capitals as with the passage of time its work load had increased.

The NCSW was constituted in 2000 through an ordinance for emancipation of women, equalization of opportunities and socio- economic conditions and elimination of all forms of discriminatory laws against women.

Justice Rizvi said Qisas was defined as the punishment by causing similar hurt at the same part of the body of the convict as caused to the victim or by causing in the offender’s death in the case of his or her committing murder. All the offences under the subject law, however, may be waived or compounded by the surviving victim or by any of the legal heirs of the victim in return of Diyat (blood money).

She said the law enacted and enforced in Pakistan re- conceptualized the offences relating to physical injury and murder in Islamic terms as understood in the country. It replaced about 40 sections of the Pakistan Penal Code 1860, which was derived from the British common law.

One of the negative impacts of this re-conceptualisation of the offence, she added, was that now the offences were directed not against the legal order of the state but against the person of the victim.

“This approach to criminal offences reinforces the assumption that the killings of family members are a family affair and that prosecution and redressal are not inevitable but may be negotiated.”

Thus if a man kills a woman of his family, the prosecution case collapses as any of the legal heirs of the deceased waives the right of Qisas or compounds the murder under “Qisas and Diyat Ordinance.” she added.

The subject law has to be examined in terms of its impact on killing in the name of honour, which although has no religious or legal sanctity but has strong roots in the socio-cultural traditions and even the judiciary shows leniency towards such crimes, she maintained.