Parliamentary Oversight and Legislation on the Actions on Human Rights in Pakistan in the 21st Century

During early years of twenty-first century, Pakistan and US-led forces’ war on terror and military’s control of country posed serious challenges about the concepts and practices of human rights in Pakistan. The human right issues regarding detentions, extra-judicial killings, sentences in various trials, missing of persons and migration of common man as well as the militants appeared in abundance. Almost all institutions of the state had to engage with such issues of human rights throughout first two decades of 21^st century. While the army had to fight on dual fronts of internal politics and conflict with militancy in the result of US-led war in Afghanistan and the courts had to hear various cases emerging from the action of executive, the parliament had to rise to the task of suitable legislation and oversight of executive’s action for the sake of implementation of human rights. This study is an attempt to analyse the role of parliament in settlement of such issues of human rights. The study also observes the process of legislation and parliamentary oversight of civil and military bureaucracy on charges of human rights violations. The debates of both houses of parliament along with the interviews of the stakeholders have been used as primary sources of the study.