The Sindh Human Rights Commission (SHRC) and the Trust for Democratic Education and Accountability (TDEA) jointly organised a conference to discuss the challenges faced by the national and sub-national human rights institutions in Pakistan.
National Commission on Status of Women (NCSW), National Commission on Human Rights (NCHR), Sindh Commission on Status of Women (SCSW) and Sindh Human Rights Commis-sion (SHRC) were represented in the conference.
The participants identified a set of legal measures to ensure the continuity and sustainability of institutions mandated to protect the rights of weak and marginalised Current and former leadership of rights-based commissions, ex-parliamentarians, representatives of federal and provincial governments and human rights defenders from civil society, legal fraternity and academia attended the meet.
Speakers called for making all the commissions established in the country functional, truly independent and effective for them to comply with the Paris Principles, 1993, which laid foundations for independent commissions to oversee human rights situation, as well as the Pakistan’s constitution and the laws governing these institutions. They particularly called for removing legal ambiguities, curbing executives’ interference and political influence on the selection of chairpersons and members of the commissions due to which many commissions have become dysfunctional or are on the verge of being dysfunctional.
