NHRC helpless due to legal constraints

National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) is helpless in taking actions against human rights violation by the members of the law enforcement agencies due to its legal limitations, says commission Chairman Kazi Reazul Hoque.     

"There is an article in law [on which the NHRC was formed] that says if human rights are violated by any member of the law enforcement agencies, we will have to seek reports from the government, which means we cannot go for direct investigation," he told reporters yesterday after a meeting with Finance Minister AMA Muhith.

A delegation of the NHRC led by its chairman paid a courtesy call on the finance minister at his secretariat office. In the meeting, the NHRC chief talked about details of the problems the commission was facing.

Reazul said Muhith wanted to know from them what was the public perception of the NHRC. "Then, I said the people are very much conscious."

He said there are many electronic and print media in the country now. When an incident of human rights violation happens, they rush there. At that time, it is the responsibility for the commission to go there.

"But in some cases, we have not only shortage of manpower and transport but also legal limitations."

He said if any allegation was brought against a public servant, they could investigate and recommend actions against him. But they could not do so against the members of the law enforcement agencies.   

Reazul said the law was framed in 2009, and the NHRC was formed in 2010 as per the provisions of the law.

He said the law needs to be revisited now, and power of the commission has to be increased.

The finance minister asked them if they had sent any proposal to the government in this regard. 

The NHRC chief said they would make a recommendation to the government for amending the law.

He also said in the country of 16 crore people, the commission has only 48 employees.

The chairman said with such insufficient manpower, monitoring of a huge number of human rights violation incidents in the country was not possible.

He added that the NHRC had recently sent a proposal to the law ministry for increasing its manpower. The proposal would now be sent to the finance ministry via the public administration ministry.

The chairman said they also submitted a proposal before the finance minister for construction of a building for the commission, and the minister said he would consider it.