JAWWAD S. KHAWAJA, J. --- We have been informed by the Joint Secretary, Federal Ministry of Law, Justice & Human Rights that a regulatory framework/ legislation shall be made to regulate the publication of law books and materials and to curb the rampant menace of erroneous law books being sold to the public and to lawyers. The date currently being given for this purpose is 31.03.2015.
We, however, direct that an undertaking in writing be submitted in Court by the Secretary of the Federal Law Ministry that such a framework shall be in place by 31.03.2015 and secondly that the enforcement mechanism, as may be envisaged under the said legislative framework, will also be in place by that date.
2.It is stated by the Joint Secretary, Ministry of Law that a monitoring and evaluation (M&E) expert will be recruited by 13.03.2015; and that 5 CVs of M&E experts are available with the Ministry. Let the recruitment process be completed by 13.03.2015. We are also informed by the Secretaries Law of the Governments of Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and Additional Secretary Law, Government of Sindh, that they will immediately request their respective Planning & Development Departments to second M&E experts to their respective departments of law. Let this be done by 14.3.2015. We are also informed by the Additional Secretary Law, Government of Punjab, that an M&E expert has already been nominated by the Planning & Development Department to the Department of Law as per letter No. DGM&E/DG/213, dated 27.2.2015.
3.Within 14 days the respective M&E experts for the Federal and Provincial Governments shall submit to the Law & Justice Commission of Pakistan (LJCP) their respective M&E frameworks to monitor the activities and deadlines committed herein. Thereafter, the M&E experts shall submit monthly performance/progress reports to the Court through the LJCP. To oversee the M&E exercise, the Ministry of Law has informed us that they shall provide an M&E expert to the LJCP no later than 13.03.2015, who shall repbrt to Secretary LJCP.
4. Vide our last order dated 25.2.2015, we had asked for a list of persons who were responsible for this abysmal state of affairs. A list of such persons has been submitted to the Court by the Federation and the respective provincial departments of law. The Ministry of Law and the respective provincial departments of law must submit written undertakings to the Court committing to take all necessary actions to ensure that such lapses in mandate and performance are not repeated; to commit that actions will be taken to ensure that the publications and reproduction of laws are verified and certified to be true, accurate and reliable; and to publish authoritative and up-to-date hard copy and on-line versions of the law that are timely and easily accessible to citizens. As directed in our order dated 28.1.2015, the publication of such laws shall be supported by chronological and alphabetical indices, definitions and key word searches, marginal notes and cross-references.
5.Whilst laws must be updated immediately on-line, to further enable access to laws, we reiterate that there must be an annual hard copy publication of the laws followed by a 4-yearly volume consolidating the laws published in the form of a code as per our order of 28.1.2015.
8.By 10.03.2015, the Ministry of Law shall issue a general public notice to those authors/publishers/printers who have printed or published law books and materials containing errors and/or omissions warning them that they may be proceeded against for such defects.
Where permissible under the current law, the Ministry of Law and the Government of Punjab shall initiate legal action against of fending authors/publishers/printers by 10.3.2015. The Government of Sindh has already indicated that it has launched an exercise to identify defective publications and where permissible shall take legal action no later than 14.3.2015. The Governments of Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa shall do the same, no later than 28.3.2015.
7. On the promulgation of the regulatory legal framework (mentioned above in paragraph 1), the Ministry of Law shall within 5 days launch an exercise to examine and "clean-up" the hardcopy and electronic reproduction and publication of Federal and Provincial laws and take legal action against offenders.
8. By 24.03.2015, the Federal Law Ministry shall identify translators. The names of 69 Advocates who have translation skills have been furnished by Mr. Abdul Salam Ch., Chairman Executive Council and Ms. Bushra Qamar, Member, Punjab Bar Council to the Secretary LJCP and to the Joint Secretary, Ministry of Law, Professor Mushtaq Ahmed of the International Islamic University has also provided a list of 25 translators and 10 review editors to Secretary LICP and Joint Secretary, Ministry of Law.
9. e are informed by the Government of Punjab that they have already engaged District Attorneys in the translation exercise and will also engage the Provincial Assembly translation staff by 14.3.2015 and engage the requisite number of translators, by 31.3.2015 to ensure availability of laws in the national language Similarly the Government of Sindh will engage their District Attorneys and Provincial Assembly translation staff by 21.3.2015, and engage translators, by 14.4.2015. Governments of Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa will do likewise, engaging their respective District Attorneys and the Provincial Assembly staff by 31.3.2015 and engage independent translators by 30.4.2015.
10.As a matter of record, we note that the Government of Pakistan has informed the Court that they have already posted on their web-site Urdu translations for the last 5 years (2015-2010), the Constitution, the Criminal Procedure Code, the Pakistan Penal Code and the Qanun-e-Shahadat Order. Translations of the laws for the period 2010-2005 will be posted on their website no later than 17.3.2015. The Governments of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa have informed us that they have posted translations of 5 laws and 3 laws respectively.
11.We are informed by the Ministry of Law that they have already identified a team of general editors and shall complete their negotiations to settle the terms of engagement by 13.3.2015. The said general editorial team shall be duly notified by 20.3.2015. We are informed that it shall set translation standards, issue translation guidelines and quality assure translations; and that it shall be housed and resourced by the Ministry of Law.
12.Whilst we note that Governments of Pakistan, Punjab and Sindh have operational web-sites displaying a limited number of laws, we are informed that as laws are verified and updated in the English language they will be posted on their respective web-sites followed by the Urdu translations of the same. The Government of Punjab has committed to support the Governments of Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa for developing their respective websites, which shall be operational by 28.4.2015.
13.We direct that the Federal and the Provincial Secretaries Law shall submit in Court written undertakings signed by the Federal Secretary and the respective Provincial Secretaries Law setting out the timelines for the various afore-mentioned activities and outputs with intermediate milestones and timelines. These shall be re-viewed at the next hearing alongwith progress made till then.
14. To come up on 02.04.2015.