LAHORE, May 31: The whole system of labour courts and tribunals needs to be reviewed if the goal of expeditious and fair adjudication of labour cases is to be realised.

This was the main recommendation of an expert group comprising trade union representatives, lawyers and civil society organisations that met here the other day.

The recommendations of the meeting were released here on Thursday by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) head office.

The experts were of the view that the working of labour courts and tribunals could not be viewed in isolation as it reflected state’s attitude towards the workers’ rights and problems. As the government had little time for drawing up a comprehensive labour policy or programme it tended to ignore the need to make forums to redress labour’s grievances.

The group deplored that a large number of workers could not access labour courts either because they had no documents to establish their employment or they did not fall in the legal definition of worker. This problem needed to be resolved on priority basis, they said.

They said the new provincial labour laws, except for the one adopted by Balochistan, did not explicitly provide for the high courts’ right to oversee the working of labour courts and tribunals, especially in the matter of appointment of their presiding officers. The supervisory role of the high courts needed to be explicitly defined.

The experts said as most of the labour forums were overburdened causing delays in disposal of cases, the number of labour courts or at least the number of judges at the existing courts should be increased.

The group favoured the creation of a judicial service exclusively trained in labour laws and suggested if that was not possible the training of labour courts’ judges in labour rights and disputes should not be delayed.

Another recommendation was that labour laws should be included as a compulsory subject in the curriculum of law schools and academies.

The group was concerned at the lack of attention to the urgency of revising labour laws and making them more just and equitable.

Finally the group called upon trade unions not to rely wholly on the government functionaries’ plans and policies and to train their members for effective advocacy of workers who were mostly subjected to injustices by their employers.