Law Demands Funds For Legal Services To Children

News Desk

Lahore: Legal Awareness Watch (LAW) is calling on decision-makers to implement the Juvenile Justice Act 2018 in its letter and spirit as the government neither established funds for providing free legal services to children nor made rehabilitation centres for them.

LAW Director Sarmad Ali said that the Juvenile Justice Act was introduced to provide a separate and effective criminal justice mechanism for children in conflict with the law.

The provincial decision-making corners are required under the Act 2018 to establish funds for providing free legal services to children brought before the justice system, he added.

Juvenile Justice Act was promulgated after the Universal Periodic Review on Pakistan in 2017, which repealed the ordinance of 2000 to provide a better system for children who were said to have violated any penal provision.

People from all walks of life and media personnel stated that children across Pakistan should not be housed in police stations as well as in ordinary prisons regulated under the Pakistan Prison Rules 1978. But instead in observation homes during the investigation period and rehabilitation centers under the law to rehabilitate them and bring them back to normal life, said Director Sarmad Ali.

Furthermore, Ali added that the concerned authorities, with no further delay, should notify the rules of business under Section 24 of the Act 2018 for implementing them in letter and spirit.

Due to this failure, juvenile justice committees across Pakistan have not been made functional for resolving minor and major nature penal violations under Section 10.

Having functional juvenile justice committees across Pakistan would relieve the courts of the burden of pendency and allow restorative justice to flourish in the country through diversion from ordinary penal sanctions, stated Director.

No attempt to date has been made at the federal nor provincial levels to ensure non-disclosure of the identity of the children who come into conflict with the law.

The Act 2018 demanded that the identity of the children who come into conflict with the law be protected at all levels, even the media, reporters, police and courts, Sarmad further said.

The law demanded that children brought to the justice system for any violation of the law should never be stigmatised or treated as desperate or hardened, even if they committed a serious violation of the law, for the reason that “even a dangerous child is a victim”.