With courts in Pakistan confronted with growing number of cases of “enforced disappearances” the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances is set to undertake its maiden visit to Pakistan from Sept 10 (today) to Sept 20.

The group will visit various parts of the country and meet with State officials, at federal and provincial levels, representatives of civil society, relevant UN agencies and relatives of disappeared persons. The experts will gather information on cases of enforced disappearances pending before the working group and also study measures adopted by the State to prevent such incidents. A final report on the mission will be presented to UN Human Rights Council in 2013.

Last month the Peshawar High Court heard around 200 petitions pertaining to missing persons. Due to increasing number of such cases, a two-member bench headed by the PHC chief justice fixed Sept 12, 18 and 25 for hearing.

During a hearing on June 26 the court was provided a list of 1,035 detainees who were released after reformation and another list of 895 persons detained in interment centres in Malakand region. On July 11, the court was informed that 194 suspects had been detained at an internment centre in Lakki Marwat.

So far the federal and provincial governments have notified nine internment centres in Provincially Administered Tribal Areas and 34 centres in Federally Administered Tribal Areas.

The high court chief justice has been asking representatives of security forces, and federal and provincial governments that missing persons in their custody should be shifted to internment centres so that they could be treated under the law.

Besides, the dumping of human bodies in different cities has now posed another challenge to the judiciary. The PHC took suo motu notice of the issue last month and would hear the case on Sept 12. However, despite this more bodies, mostly of missing persons, were dumped in different cities as well as in parts of tribal areas.

Presently, two UN bodies – The Committee on Enforced Disappearances and the Working Group – collaborate where possible to assist states in tackling the issue of “enforced disappearances.” The working group, having five members, was established by the UN Commission on Human Rights in 1980 to assist families in determining the fate and whereabouts of disappeared relatives.

Similarly, the 10-member Committee on Enforced Disappearances was established when the International Convention for Protection of all persons from Enforced Disappearances entered into force on Dec. 23, 2010. The convention affirms that enforced disappearances constitute a crime against humanity when practiced in a systematic manner.

While the competence of the committee is limited to those States that have ratified the Convention, the working group is able to consider the situation in all countries. The committee will be competent to deal with those cases of enforced disappearances which took place after the entry into force of the Convention, while the group may examine all situations before that.

Pakistan has neither signed nor ratified the convention. Under the convention no one shall be subjected to enforced disappearance. It states: “No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification for enforced disappearance.”

In Pakistan, apart from constitutional guarantees against arbitrary detention, the Pakistan Penal Code also deals with wrongful restraint and wrongful confinement. Section 340 of PPC defines wrongful confinement as: “Whoever wrongfully restrain any person in such a manner as to prevent that person from proceeding beyond certain circumscribing limit, is said ‘wrongfully to confine’ that person.”

The crime of wrongful confinement carries different sentences ranging from prison terms of one year to three years keeping in view the duration of confinement. However, so far none of the personnel of any agency has been convicted under the said provision of law.

Experts dealing with cases of missing persons believe that while intelligence agencies have mostly been ignoring directives of the courts in such cases, the visit of the working group might prove helpful as the issue would be internationalised.