March 14, 2018: CODE PAKISTAN held a consultative session with the subject matter experts to seek their feedback on a report on prison overcrowding with special reference to pre-conviction detention that it has recently submitted to the National Counter Terrorism Authority (NACTA). CODE PAKISTAN has been working on the report since it was assigned the task by NACTA in April 2017. In the one year that CODE PAKISTAN has been working on the report, it has gathered statistics on the numbers of prisoners in all the prisons of the four provinces and two Administrative Territories (ATs) disaggregated by judicial status, age, and gender, as well as various statistics on police, prosecution services, and the judiciary, with the support of NACTA. Besides conducting a thorough review of national and international reports, journals, and news articles on the subject matter, as well as relevant decisions, rulings, orders, regulations, and laws applicable in Pakistan, CODE PAKISTAN has also benefited from the expertise of serving criminal justice officials. In the course of preparing the report, CODE PAKISTAN has held four consultations with senior-level criminal justice officials in Islamabad in which a total of 58 officials participated; two consultations with senior-level members of the judiciary in Peshawar and Islamabad in which 14 judges, representing the four provincial judiciaries, participated; five consultations with senior-level lawyers of the Islamabad Bar, as well as the four provincial Bar Councils, in which a total of 84 lawyers participated; and interviewed 18 senior-level serving criminal justice officials in their offices in the federal capital, as well as the four provincial capitals, with the support of NACTA.
The purpose of today’s subject matter experts’ consultation was to solicit fresh input from the relevant subject matter experts on the recommendations given in the report. At the beginning of the consultation, Director General (DG) Counter Terrorism NACTA Mr. Muhammad Jaffer informed the audience about the background of the commissioning of the study under Point 20 of the National Action Plan concerning revamping of the criminal justice system. His brief was followed by a presentation on CODE PAKISTAN’s report, its finding and recommendations, by Founder CODE PAKISTAN Mr. Dilawar Khan. After Mr. Khan’s presentation on the findings and recommendations of the report, the subject matter experts were divided into following three separate breakout sessions for more detailed deliberation:
Group 1: Improving access to legal counsel, reinforcing alternatives to pre-trial detention, and removing obstacles and delays in accessing justice.
Group 2: Preventing unnecessary arrests and imprisonment at the police level, maximizing police resource and modernizing investigation methods, and responding to issues pertaining to prosecution.
Group 3: Addressing socio-economic causes leading to high pre-conviction detention, balancing the use of imprisonment in the criminal justice policies, supporting effective prison management and rehabilitation, and ensuring safety and well-being of criminal justice stakeholders.
After the breakout sessions, the moderators of the three subject matter specialist sessions gave their feedback for improvements in the report recommendations on the subjects assigned to them during the concluding session. The concluding session was jointly chaired by the National Coordinator NACTA Mr. Ihsan Ghani Khan and Secretary Law and Justice Commission of Pakistan (LJCP) Dr. Muhammad Raheem Awan.
Other participants of the consultative session with subject matter experts were Advocate High Court Barrister Hashim Javed, Program Manager Dost Welfare Foundation Mr. Tariq Mehmood, Director Institute of Law and Criminology Ms. Anam Abbasi, Advocate Taimur Ali Khan, Program Officer United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Mr. Rizwan Ullah, Mr. Oves Anwar from the Research Society of International Law (RSIL), Mr. Shabeeb Anwar from INL, Executive Director SACH Ms. Khalida Salimi, Barrister Sarah Belal from Justice Project Pakistan (JPP), Ms. Ayesha Durrani, Mr. Attaullah Khan from University of Malakand, Mr. Muhammad Irfan Afridi from the Society for Human Rights and Prisoners’ Aid (SHARP), President Dost Welfare Foundation Dr. Parveen Azam Khan, Retired Session Judge Mr. Abdul Mateen Khan, Ms. Saadia Zahoor and Ms. Nadia Khadam from BUIC, Ms. Paula from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Advocate Adnan Iqbal, Advocate Aamir Aziz, Advocate Sadaqat Ali, Legal Director Peace and Justice Network Ms. Faiza Farooq, Former Head of the Faculty of Law of University of Peshawar Prof. Ahmed Ali, Ms. Sadaf Ali, Advocate Amin Ullah Khan Durrani, students of Institute of Law Ms. Somaiyya Saad and Mr. Momin Taufeeq ICRC Representatives Mr. Saghir Hamdani, Mr. M. Hazrat, Ms. Sahar Haroon, Ms. Chamaine Enerva, Ms. Zartasha Qaisar Khan, Vice President CODE PAKISTAN Mr. Aarish Ullah Khan, Senior Advisor CODE PAKISTAN Mr. Mohsin Turk, Director Program CODE PAKISTAN Ms. Saba Imran, Research Assistant CODE PAKISTAN Ms. Sana Taha, and intern at CODE PAKISTAN Ms. Syeda Masooma Bukhari.