LAHORE, March 22: The government is learnt to have decided to establish an independent ministry for human rights at the centre with similar portfolios in provinces. As a precursor a National Human Rights Commission will be established under an act of parliament. The government has already moved the National Assembly in a bill for a legislation and the NA’s standing committee is considering the bill clause by clause, says a senior officer of the Law, Justice and Human Rights Ministry. The bill is expected to be passed by the assembly in the second session most probably in June.

The officer, who was in Lahore on Wednesday to participate in a workshop designed to develop a strategy for a public-private partnership for the rehabilitation of juvenile prisoners, told Dawn that the federal cabinet had approved the draft law about two months and soon after the ministry moved the bill n the National Assembly.

Separate human rights ministries will later be set up in provinces and with the passage of time human rights will become so important a subject as to be included in the schedule of local governments. Subsequently, rights departments will be set up at district level throughout the country with the objective of ‘evolving a society which will hold the respect of fellow human beings in the highest esteem’, according to the officer who also said that the fact that the government plans to take up the issue of human rights violation at the grassroots level is an example of the government’s concern for human rights.

An independent ministry for human rights was established by Benazir Bhutto in her second term as prime minister. The ministry was abolished by the Nawaz Sharif government which gave this subject to the interior ministry under which a human rights wing was established. When the Musharraf regime took over, the wing under the interior ministry was dispensed with and human rights portfolio was given under the Law and Justice Ministry.

Later, the ministry set up human rights wings in provinces with the objective of monitoring the rights violation in collaboration with NGOs. However, the provincial wings exposed their weakness as a public sector department and the government has not been satisfied with their performance which, it was felt at the highest level, did not get the required help from provincial departments, particularly police, in mitigating rights abuse. As for the proposed National Human Rights Commission, it will be headed by a chairperson preferably a sitting or retired judge of the Supreme Court so that it was able to take cognizance of rights violation with the authority vested in a high court.