DHARWAD: The State Government's move to set up human rights courts to try cases of human rights violations has generated considerable debate in the State. Human rights activists have welcomed the move as a long overdue step. V.S. Malimath, Chairman of the Karnataka Commission of Jurists and former member of the National Human Rights Commission, has been quick to react to the development.

There is a view that merely setting up courts without constituting a State Human Rights Commission (SHRC) and without clearly defining the procedure may not augur well for promoting human rights.

The issue of setting up human rights commissions and human rights courts has been hanging fire since the Human Rights Act was enacted by Parliament nearly a decade ago. The first signs that the Dharam Singh Government wants to put human rights on centre stage were available when the Law Minister, H.K. Patil, came out with a mission statement for his Ministry.

Notification

Accordingly, the State Government has taken the first step to set up human rights courts in all the districts and issued a notification in consultation with the Chief Justice of the Karnataka High Court under Section 30 of the Human Rights Act, 1993 under which all the principal district and sessions courts have been designated as human rights courts.

However, the Government seems to have some reservations about setting up the SHRC. The Home Department has to take the initiative to set up the commission.

The Law Ministry started the process of setting up the human rights courts soon after the mission statement was unveiled. The issue was taken up with the Chief Justice of the Karnataka High Court. "We were simply thrilled when the green signal was received from the High Court," a spokesman of the Government said.

The initiative comes at a time when human rights courts set up in many other States are not functional mainly because of the ambiguity surrounding what constitutes human rights violations. The efforts of the NHRC to persuade the Centre to amend the Act to clarify the doubts have been in vain. The procedure to be followed is also not very clear. This could lead to protracted arguments and delays, which will defeat the purpose of having human rights courts.

Mr. Malimath said there is need to proceed cautiously in the matter and prepare the ground for the proper functioning of the human rights courts. He has written to Mr. Patil offering his expertise to make the human rights courts functional.

Mr. Patil said the Government wants to finalise the procedure and set the stage for the designated courts to start functioning by the time the courts reopen after vacation.

Mr. Patil said there is scope for attending to violations that are outside the ambit of the criminal justice system.

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