Robert Wintemute, Professor of Human Rights Law, King’s College, London has delivered a special lecture through Skype from London to the judicial officers attending 61st Three Day Short Training Program for Civil Judges here at the Punjab Judicial Academy on 17th June 2014 (02:00 p.m.–03:00 p.m.). The topic of lecture was: “Towards a South Asian Court of Human Rights? The Example of the European Court of Human Rights”.
The lecture was attended by the judicial officers and the Faculty of the Academy including the Director General. Prof. Wintemute has highlighted that Pakistan has ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR, 1966) in 2010 and therefore it has State responsibilities to bring its legislation at par with the Covenant. He also made a reference to the constitutional provisions in the chapter dealing with fundamental rights especially the right to life, dignity and protection against illegal arrest and informed the audience that these constitutional provisions needs to be suitably amended to make them compliant with ICCPR and the international best practices over these issues. Pakistan has not ratified the Optional Protocol of ICCPR for which steps are required to be taken by the State. He also made brief discussion on the Human Rights Committee of the United Nations constituted under ICCPR and Optional Protocol and informed that its decisions are not binding like a judicial decisions but the States violating the decisions may face sanctions like removal from the Covenant or Protocol etc.
The focus of the lecture was also to highlight the establishment of regional human rights courts in other regions of the world especially the Europe. He gave examples of African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights (1981), American Convention on Human Rights (1969) and European Convention on Human Rights (1950). He was of the view that the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) is a regional body that has established certain norms in Europe to hold certain State actions by the respondent member states as violating the European human rights. This court has emerged out of the European Commission of Human Rights and is part of the regime called Council of Europe.
Regarding the binding force and execution of judgments, he has clarified that the judgment of ECtHR is referred to a committee of Ministers for supervision of its execution. In case of any dispute over execution of the judgment, the legal questions may again be referred to ECtHR and said decision will be final. He has quoted certain examples where the judgments have not been enforced by certain Contracting Parties while the committee of Ministers has thus recommended for sanctions.
The learned Professor has advanced the argument that South Asia has already a regional body called South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) and under its umbrella the human rights institutions may be established so that no human rights violation in any SAARC country is left unattended by the national legal and judicial regimes.
Q&A Session:
After the lecture, the participants have asked a number of important and interesting questions relating to the issues of Human Rights in Europe, America and South Asia. Some of the questions relates to the religious limitations while the others were the political and legislative limitations. The learned Professor has answered the questions keeping in view the understanding of the issues as developed in Western Europe and America.
Overall, the lecture was interesting and the participants took a great interest in the presentation and a live question answer session lasted for almost 30 minutes. The Director General concluded the session by saying a vote of thanks to Prof. Robert Wintemute for his continuous interaction with the Academy for giving time to deliver the lecture and for his commitment to the cause of Human Rights.
