LAHORE, April 12: Cherie Blair, the wife of British prime minister, on Tuesday launched a free legal assistance project “Advocate” to help children in detention in Pakistan.
The project, to be set up by the Law Society of England and Wales and the British Pakistan Law Council (BPLC), will establish a sustainable pro bono/volunteer lawyers network to provide free legal advice to the children languishing in jails in Lahore and Karachi.
Speaking at the launching ceremony, Ms Blair said only an independent and impartial judicial system could ensure rule of law and ultimately preservation of human rights. She said the preservation of human rights was a universal concept that required maintenance of human dignity.
She hoped Pakistan, being a signatory to the Human Rights Convention, would preserve the rights of children and the minorities. She said Islam has in-built concepts of justice and equality. Law must be open, clear and stable to develop a strong society. “Judges should be objective, independent, above bias and political affiliation,” she said.
Ms Blair, a jurist by profession, stressed that the deprived children must not languish in jails just because of non-availability of legal aid. She said there were around 4,500 children in Pakistan’s jails and two-third of them were not even undergoing any trial for just being poor and illiterate. She said the Advocate had been launched to help such children.
She said the pro bono work carried great importance in legal work in a society. “The culture of pro bono work reinforces integrity, values and ethics of the legal profession,” she said. She hoped the project would contribute in the development of a civil society in its own way.
Earlier, Punjab Governor Khalid Maqbool said the young lawyers doing pro bono work would enhance people’s faith in younger generation.
He said the Musharraf government initiated law reforms that helped strengthen the judicial system. Citing an example, he said, the Supreme Court had recently given a verdict against the Punjab government. The institution of ombudsman was also resolving people’s complaints against the government.
He said the government had also enhanced the age limit for juvenile prisoners up to 18 years. The Punjab government had upgraded two juvenile jails and working to set up a reformatory jail to educate and impart vocational skills to child prisoners. The government had also created a Child Protection Bureau, he said.
The governor said there were 5,200 prisoners, including 1,233 juveniles, in Punjab. Most of the juvenile prisoners were undergoing trial. It was also a matter of encouragement that the parents of some 77 per cent child prisoners were in touch with their wards.
He said the government continued to reduce punishments and set many prisoners free on different occasions like Eids and Ramazan. He, however, admitted that it was still a long way to go to resolve human rights issues.
The ambassador and the head of the European Commission delegation to Pakistan, Ilkka Uusitalo, said the Advocate would receive 80 per cent of its funding from the EC under the European Initiate for Democracy and Human Rights and 20 per cent from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Law Society Charity. He said the EU was providing some 100 million Euros annually through the EIDHR to support human rights, democratisation and conflict prevention activities worldwide.
Mr Uusitalo said the EU had a longstanding commitment for the promotion and protection of the rights of the child and the improvement of access to justice for vulnerable groups, including children in Pakistan. “Rights are effective only when people are aware of them, assert them and defend them,” he said.
He said the child rights were systematically streamlined into all projects financed by the EU. “The next EU Country Strategy Paper for Pakistan (2007-2013) includes a robust intervention in the area of access to justice for vulnerable groups.”
BPLC founder and lawyer Mahnaz Malik said the project Advocate was an opportunity for young British and Pakistani lawyers to work together in providing legal assistance to children in detention through the sharing of expertise and resources. “Our goal is to work together with the government and civil society to further build upon the efforts to improve access to justice for the vulnerable in Pakistan,” she said.
Pakistan ambassador to the UK Dr Maliha Lodhi, Law Society of England and Wales’ international projects officer Charlotte Ford and others were also present on the occasion.