UNDP, European Union, and Peshawar High Court organize a consultative workshop on strengthening coordination in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s justice sector

November 3, 2022

 

Peshawar, 3 November 2022 – United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in collaboration with the Peshawar High Court (PHC) and with the European Union’s (EU) support, conducted a two-day consultative workshop to enhance collaboration and cooperation between the Provincial Justice Committee (PJC) and Criminal Justice Coordination Committees (CJCCs) in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP).

The PJC is a provincial body that works to address legal and security challenges in KP to ensure fairer, and more inclusive delivery of justice for all. The CJCCs are committees that work with PJC to implement the criminal justice system at the district level. The PJC and CJCCs work in complementarity to better deliver accessible and inclusive justice for all in the KP province.

The consultative workshop was organized under the EU-supported “Deliver Justice Project.” The participants of the workshop included representatives of PHC, KP District Judiciary, KP Judicial Academy, Home and Tribal Affairs Department, Police, Prosecution, Bar Council, Reclamation and Probation, Anti-Corruption, Law Parliamentary Affairs and Human Rights, Advocate General Office, Prisons, UN WOMEN and UNODC.

The workshop provided a unique opportunity to bring together a range of justice sector officials and experts and to jointly discuss structural, operational, strategic and legal challenges that PJC and CJCCs face as well as ways to address them. It concluded with a set of recommendations for reforms that were presented to the PJC for its final deliberations and approval.

Honourable Chief Justice, PHC, Justice Qaiser Rashid Khan attended the workshop as chief guest. He praised in his address the efforts in bringing together all the key stakeholders on one platform. He remarked, “PHC is committed to serving the community more efficiently and we hope that the recommendations made in this workshop will expedite justice delivery in KP at both provincial and district levels.”

 

 

The EU reiterated its commitment to join forces with Pakistan to actively advance the delivery of justice, peace, and security for the people, particularly women and girls. This work is also an essential part of the priorities of the EU-Pakistan Strategic Engagement Plan agreed upon in 2019.

Ms Chamila Hemmathagama, Programme Manager, Rule of Law Programme, UNDP Pakistan, reiterated, “Facilitating joint platforms such as this consultative workshop are essential to ensure better and improved coordination and partnerships between diverse stakeholders in the justice system. This is also key to building safer communities where rule of law prevails.”

The “Deliver Justice programme” funded by the EU aims to support reform processes to ensure the delivery of people-centred justice, enhance access to justice for all, particularly women and less privileged groups and improve service delivery of the security sector in line with constitutional safeguards and international standards in the Merged Districts and Balochistan. The programme is funded by the EU and jointly implemented by UNDP, UN WOMEN and UNODC.

For additional information, please contact Tabindah Anwar at tabindah.anwar@undp.org  or +92 (51) 835 5650

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