Conference Emphasizes On Awareness, Enforcement Of Laws

HYDERABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 8th Nov, 2018 ) :The judges, lawyers and the civil society representatives have emphasized on the need that people should familiarize themselves with the laws concerning environment, cyber space, the Constitution and human rights.

At an event titled 'Law Conference', organized by Government Sindh Law College in collaboration with the non-profit Rights Now Pakistan (RNP) here Thursday, the experts also called for enforcement of the laws.

The speakers expressed their views in three separate sessions on the subjects of constitutionalism and human rights, cyber laws and environmental laws.

The judges of Sindh High Court, retired judges of the Supreme Court, senior lawyers and office bearers of Supreme Court Bar Association and Sindh Bar Council were among the speakers.

Speaking in the session on environment, justice (r) Amir Hani Muslim, Chairman of the Supreme Court mandated Water Commission, shared his experiences and views since he assumed the Commission's chairmanship in January, 2018. "The people can do certain things to improve the environment and the [civic] facilities if they begin to own the things," he observed.

He blamed the government for failing to create awareness about environmental issues and the role of the people who end up contributing to the pollution as they remain oblivious of the consequences.

Justice (r) Muslim said even the authorities which regulated the environment like Sindh Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) lacked complete understanding of the subject. "I ordered them to submit details of all the industrial units operating in Sindh and the nature of their effluents but the SEPA itself doesn't have these details," he told.

He underscored the need of the agency's capacity building and increasing its manpower and resources to make it able to improve enforcement of the environmental laws.

Justice (r) Muslim told that over 12,000 tons of waste was thrown in the sea and the Indus river and its canals were polluted at more than 500 locations in Sindh.

He informed that in Tharparkar only 239 out of 834 reverse osmosis (RO) plants were operating while those include 50 big RO plants as another 36 large RO plants are defunct. According to him, the RO plants were not a permanent solution to the problem of water supply in Tharparkar.

He found the supply of canal water through the pipelines in the desert region as a better alternative.

The SEPA's Regional Director Munir Ahmed Abbassi admitted the capacity issues in the agency. He suggested that more staff should be appointed for SEPA to address the shortage and more offices in all the districts should be established along with provision of equipment and vehicles.

He further recommended that the environment management centers should be established in all districts of Sindh to sensitize the people with environment and the regulating laws.

He apprised that so far SEPA had filed 152 cases against environmental violations in the Sindh Environment Tribunal. Another 384 complaints had been registered with the judicial magistrates, he added.

Ali Akbar Rahimo, an environmental activist from Tharparkar, expressed concerns over the coal extraction and power generation projects. He argued that the two processes would lead to environmental degradation and would affect the people, environment, flora and fauna of the desert region.

Speaking in the session over the cyber laws, advocate Ali Palh of Rights Now Pakistan said the gaps existed in the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act, 2016. According to him, the people also lacked awareness about the Act and how to get justice with the help of the Act if they were made victims of the cyber crimes.

Sindh High Court's justice Fahim Ahmed Siddiqui pointed out that the social media was being misused. He shared instances of how fake messages were spread without checking authenticity. "One I received a forward message of a Hadees which when I checked wasn't a Hadees," he told. He bemoaned that the human intelligence was being supplanted by the artificial intelligence due to greater reliance on the latter.

Advocate Tariq Aziz Memon of Sindh Law College said the cyber crimes were rapidly increasing. He said around 44 million people use internet in Pakistan and there was a lack of awareness about the cyber world and the laws exposed them to the crimes. He informed that the people could log reports to the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) over its helpline or through email if they had been victimized.

Haroon Baloch of Bytes for All, a non-profit organization working on the digital rights, said debate over the rights on the cyber space had began aggressively in the country. He underlined the need of conducting capacity building training of the judges to acquaint them with the cyber space and the cyber laws.

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf's MNA Lal Malhi said the federal government was vigorously taking the issues of fundamental rights. He said the situation relating to rights of the minorities in the country had improved but further legislation could be done on the issues like alleged forced conversions of Hindu girls.

Prosecutor General Sindh Advocate Ayaz Tunio, Principal Sindh Law College advocate Nisar Ahmed Durrani and other lawyers also spoke at the conference.

Justice Ahmed Ali Shaikh and Justice Abdul Maalik Gaddi of Sindh High Court and District and Session Judge Hyderabad besides other judicial officers also attended the event.