 Another episode of Islamabad today on Think Tech Hawaii, I'm your host, Hamza Raffer-Los-San. Today's question is going to be on the question of law and the accessibility of law and the applicability of law for all segments of society. When we talk about the developing world in general, there have been lots of complaints from average citizens that they're not able to actually access law firms and they're not able to access the right, you know, the lawyers and to try and make sure that they can plead their case. And we're talking about a society in Pakistan where honor killings are on the rise. There's women harassment in the workplaces as well. And there are all sorts of stuff that actually happens to people where, you know, speedy justice is actually needed. So, how to actually tackle that particular problem, that is something that we're going to be discussing today. I have with me senior advocate, Ms. Seba Farooq. She has over 20 years of legal advisory experience and has held some very important positions during her career as the head of legal, you know, a head of legal to the Wafaki Bothism, which basically means the federal ombudsman. She was also the legal advisor to the ICRC and the United Nations. And she was also legal advisor to NEPRA and legal consultant to UK aid. She's an expert in the area of international humanitarian law. And that's exactly what we're going to be discussing with her today as part of the show and human rights as well and engages with international organizations. Since 2014, Seba operates her own law firm, namely SNS Law Associates, with his full service firm offering specialized legal services in the range of civil and criminal matters. Ms. Seba Farooq, thank you so much for joining me on the show. Thank you, Hamza. I'm so happy to be on your show today. How are you? I'm good. I'm good. I hope you're doing well too. It's an absolute honor for me to have you on the show, and I'm pretty sure that, you know, most of our viewers in Hawaii and across the West Coast would be pretty much, you know, inspired by what you have to say today. So, Ms. Seba, let's start off with a basic question here. And when we talk about the basic question, how difficult is it for average Pakistani citizens or average citizens in the developing world, quote unquote, to access law firms? Okay, Hamza, the thing is that Pakistan is a huge country, and this side of the world is heavily populated. We have a great disparity between the rural and the urban population. So this answer is going to be different for what access of justice is like to people in the villages and for what access to justice is like for women, for people in the cities. I do not think actually in presenting Pakistan, it is very difficult. It is not very difficult. In the past about five years, we have seen increasing litigation. We have seen people reach out to alternate resolution methods, such as the federal law enforcement. We see people speaking for their rights. We see minorities and women and the transgender community. We see see them out. We see them protesting. We see them reaching out. We see petitions. So not as difficult as maybe it was 10 years back. The situation is definitely improving. OK, OK, absolutely. So when we talk about you mentioned women and, you know, we talk about women in countries such as Pakistan, they tend to be some of the most deprived segments of the society. We're talking about literacy rates, which are actually a lot lower as compared to the male counterparts and their ability to access justice has also been impeded to a large extent. How much do you think that's true? And number two, what sort of impediments to women actually encounter when they're accessing justice? OK, so Hamza, yes, absolutely true. The the gender, what you would say, disparities, yeah, it's huge. The kind of access that a man has in this society compared to what a woman has in very many different areas is is very different. There is a big gap in that. Having said that, I would say that the law has been improving for women. Let's look at some things like the there is now a law called the workplace protection of women at the workplace against harassment. So that law came in 2010. Initially, when a law is, you know, passed through parliament, it takes some time for it to develop and get known within society and for people to employ that law and for it to actually become useful. So it took about, I would say, actually about a decade for that to happen. But now women are very well aware of how to protect themselves from harassment at the workplace. That is one of the things. Now there are domestic violence laws in all the provinces. Some years back, even those didn't exist. Actually, women were not even aware that they could raise their voice against domestic violence. That is also changing media, as you know, in Pakistan has become. It's a huge tool. You yourself have been associated with media. You are right now as well. And you know that media, especially social media has reached out deep into our society down to the villages. So women are more aware of their rights compared to what they were some years back. However, there are still very many challenges that women face in terms of their rights to inheritance and property. That is one of the main things all over the country. You know, women are denied that is something very common place. And it's a common practice that, you know, the girls in the family are asked to write off their property in favor of their brothers or their husbands or any male relatives. And they do not even think that it is a right to protest against that. Right to education. When a household has a son and a daughter, they prefer to send the son to school and they choose not to send the daughter and she's married off, right to, you know, rights over their own bodies, rights to decide whether they want to have children or how many children they want to have or whether they do not want to have children anymore. So these are some things that are still huge challenges. They are there civil society, the legal fraternity, you know, as such the educated segment of society is fighting against it, is trying to raise awareness. But we are still far, you know, we still have a long way to go before we reach that ideal state that we would want. OK, you mentioned gender disparity. I would also like to highlight the rural urban divide. So when you talk about women who actually heal from tribal society or societies where you could say access to justice is basically limited with the limited amount of facilities that are actually available. So do you think it's more easier for a woman to access law firms and lawyers and, you know, competent judges within urban centers such as Islamabad, Lahore, Karachi, Peshawar as compared to maybe in Turbat or, you know, the erstwhile Fata region, the NMDs, for example, you're talking about moment agency or agency. So do you think that it's more of an urban rural divide as well? Absolutely. Absolutely. A hundred percent. The rural urban divide is huge. I cannot even even so much so in there's a divide between certain cities as well. So Peshawar is very close to us. We're sitting in Islamabad. There's going to be a big difference between the way a woman lives her ordinary life or has access to justice in Islamabad and compared to one in Peshawar. When I go to Peshawar, I cannot even walk the streets the way that I am right now. I'm going to cover my head so that I don't stand out as the only woman within with the uncovered head. And that is and that's intimidating because nobody else is like that over there. Likewise, in the in the far out Fata regions, you cannot. You're not going to see women on the streets, let alone being able to walk into law firms or walking to the courts and seeking justice for themselves. So you're absolutely 100 percent right. But inside Islamabad, in Karachi, in Lahore, I do not think that access to justice for women is very hard. Yes, at the family front, they may face hurdles when their family is not supportive of them to seek justice. However, there are very many female lawyers now in all the courts. There are very many female lawyers in law firms for a woman who wants to say seek her right to divorce or wants to apply for what wants the guardianship of her children, right? Fully that those that should be with her or a woman who wants her right over her inheritance. It's not hard for her to seek out a female lawyer or a lawyer as such to fight her case. It's not that hard in the urban setting. OK, OK, so I mean, we're also talking about, you know, a gender divide as far as, you know, access to justice is concerned. I think one of the main areas that needs to be shed light on and something that Pakistan does not necessarily get the credit that it deserves is the, you know, is the concept of the alternate dispute mechanism. So when we talk about the alternate dispute mechanism, this was basically passed by the parliament and the parliament basically said, OK, for women who are actually living in societies where access to justice is impeded, we're talking about situations where maybe the Jirga system or maybe a system that, you know, the society is actually accept as mechanisms for dispensing justice. They can actually be taken into the forefront and other dispute mechanisms can be taken into consideration. Do you think that the ultimate dispute resolution mechanism that is actually in place for places such as the NMDs or places in Balochistan, is it effective enough? Or do you think that access to courts or high courts or local courts or district courts or even the Supreme Court, for that matter, that needs to be secured for great agenda. There are, Hamzad, there are very many aspects that have to be kept in mind. Talking about alternate dispute counts. Number one, they're necessary because the main problem in Pakistan is the huge tendency of cases with courts. The courts are overburdened, have such a huge backlog that the same justice delay, justice denied applies 100% in Pakistan. People wait a number of years for their cases to reach a finality or for them to get a decision or for them to get some justice. So that means that the courts are having a hard time to handle all the cases that they have. This is where the alternate dispute, alternate dispute resolution and mechanisms are very, very important. Having said that, you mentioned Jirghas. I, for one, do not think that the Jirghas are competent enough to understand the protection of fundamental rights. Every citizen of Pakistan has a right that their rights under the Constitution should be protected. Now, who can do that? The justice for the protection of fundamental rights can be dispensed through people who know about those fundamental rights, are educated in those fundamental rights, who have some judicial training. So the Jirga system is not reliant on that. Jirga system is reliant on culture and tradition. Culture and tradition for very long has violated the rights of women as such and has allowed the denial of their fundamental rights for very, very long. So if we keep relying on those ancient and primitive methods, then there is no hope for the fundamental rights of women to be protected or the fundamental rights of the minorities to be protected. Our Constitution makes it very clear, especially in its provisions, that there needs to be special laws in place for the protection of women and laws are essential. So I support alternate dispute mechanisms, but the likes of the Ombudsman Institution or the likes of other quasi-judicial institutions that are actually educated in the laws of the country and so that there can be some uniformity in the application of laws. I do not support the Jirga systems or the traditional cultural systems that are that are actually built on biases. OK, all right, so I'm able to make you understand. Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, I think that's a fair enough point because when you need alternate dispute mechanisms, but you also need to make sure that the applicability of law and the provision of justice needs to be provided by the traditional pillars of providing justice, for example, the courts. You're talking about the federal ombudsman that you write these. So I think that's a fair enough point. We'll speak about international humanitarian law in a minute. But when we talk about minority rights in Pakistan and we're talking about Christians who are actually targeted and when they actually get to the force, the justice is not dispensed. You have a Sikh population, a small one, but a very significant one, predominantly in Punjab and in Khyber Pakhtunpa. And when attacks take place against them, they also have complained that dispensation of justice for our communities tends to be very different from the predominantly Muslim majority population. So and that's that's a trend which we also see in India. We also have seen it in Sri Lanka and also in Bangladesh as well. But how do you how do you overcome such a problem where every citizen, as you rightly mentioned, in the Constitution is somebody who has fundamental human rights, regardless of his religion, ethnicity, caste, creed, whatever. But at the same time, it's important for them to have the same, you could say, dispensation of justice that would be awarded to a majority population, a member of the majority population, for that matter. How do you bridge that divide when it comes to minorities? Just talking about women, what about minorities? So when I speak about minorities, I think women, the trans community, the religious segments, such as Christians and people from other religions inside Pakistan, they all fall in the minority segment. But of course, religious minorities, largely as well. How do you correct that divide only by strengthening the judicial system? That is the only way. And to strengthen the judicial system and to get just decisions at the end of the day, you also have to strengthen the law enforcement system. So what's where the problem stems from in Pakistan, Hamzah, is because the investigation stage is very largely corrupted, is very slow, is very defective. So when your case, your litigation from where it stems, there is a huge reliance on the law enforcement to ensure that the investigation is done in a speedy and in a correct manner. That is not done so in most cases and especially in the cases of various minorities. So when they do not get justice and fair treatment at the very first step, then they are compromised in the judicial system. So it's very important to reorganize this judicial system. It is very important to ensure that the investigative stage is very well done. It is very important to ensure that there is training of the various tyres. So there needs to be training of the law enforcement. There needs to be training of the legal fraternity and there needs to be training of the judiciary to ensure that there is uniformity and to ensure that it is all done in a speedy manner. And there needs to be a certain cases need to be diverted to the alternate dispute mechanisms that are very functional and well in place in the country so that the burden is a little bit reduced on the judiciary and they're able to handle cases in a speedy manner. So I think it's all very interconnected. It's all very interconnected at a very institutional level until we have all these institutional changes we're not going to be able to solve the problem for anyone, let alone the minorities. So in your experience with the federal ombudsman or the Vafakimothazid, there have been many cases which have come to the fore and how do you rate the functionality of the Vafakimothazid which is actually located in Islamabad and it's very far away from the periphery where many such horrendous cases actually take place against the minorities. You talk about women, you talk about the different segments of society. How would you rate the performance of the federal ombudsman? Okay, so now the federal ombudsman has regional offices almost all over Pakistan and has a reach into the district. They have these judicial sort of what we call open kacherey sort of thing in Pakistan. So they reach out into the districts and they offer a speedy resolution of the cases and how I would rate them they're superb because it's the only institution where within 60 days you get a decision. Their mandate is limited to the extent of complaints against the mal-administration of government. Now these can be any kind of complaints from an incorrect electricity bill to corruption at the hands of a government official to a complaint against the police to a complaint against the gas or electricity or the water or the telephone or the educational authorities. Any government department where the government has a share is falls under the mandate of the ombudsman secretary and the ombudsman secretary is the only institution in Pakistan which ensures that a decision is given out in a period in a matter of 60 days. So for the common man it's a breath of fresh air. You know if they were to go to the court 60 days would probably be their first step towards just having their case filed and maybe a first or second hearing. So here they get a final decision and because this ombudsman secretary at employees primarily employees retired judicial officers and government officers. So these government officers and judicial officers are able to resolve at least 98% of the cases through mediation. So the methodology is this that if you were to come to the ombudsman secretary period before officers for a hearing and you have a complaint against say the capital development authority. So what they're going to do is that they're going to get a representative of the CD over there and they're going to have you over there and you have a chance to voice your complaint and discuss it. The paperwork has already been done and they have a chance to respond in front of the officer. So 98% of the time it gets resolved through mediation. So I would say it's super it's fantastic we need more institutions like this in Pakistan. And there's no problem with regard to access because it's one thing having the case actually being floated by a member of the Falki Malthus of other federal ombudsmen but it's one thing having access to it. So you think there's no problem with access as far as the common citizen. There is absolutely no problem to access because the complaint can be in writing the complaint can be an email the complaint can be sent by a representative if you can't make it they will take you on a video call if you can't make it they will take you on a telephone call you can reach out from any part of the country and send a handwritten paper written complaint and that's all that's all that's required. Okay, so yeah. Very friendly to the common person. That's excellent because when you have the federal ombudsman model and you know the reputation of the organization is intact the dispensation of the justice system is the absolutely you know stellar in that regard. So why don't you think don't you think that that particular model should be replicated in all tiers of you know dispensation of justice when you talk about the courts because lots of complaints have been coming up and let me point out to the events after the no confidence motion which took place when a former prime minister was actually deposed from power. There was a lot of discussion with regard to the role of the previous Chief Justice and the Supreme Court with regard to you could say unilateral decision making and one of the M&A's I remember from the Pakistan People's Party he basically said that if you take a look at the amount of pending cases in the Supreme Court. I mean it's absolutely remarkable there have been cases which have been going on for five years for six years with no resolution in sight. So the ombudsman actually acts as a very good example or a template that maybe the other judicial organs can actually follow. Do you agree with that? I do agree with that however I also cannot you know completely say that then we can't dispute the importance of courts because the ombudsman deals with the simplified cases now a lot of litigation is very complex a lot of litigation requires evidence a lot of litigation requires a high level of evidence and witness stage and requires a lot more deep analysis into the case then ombudsman is equipped to do so. So that institution has its limitations but it is great because it handles a large quantity of litigation that is simple. Those are simple problems that a common citizen of Pakistan is encountering and they can be quickly resolved. So I do think that they need to be sifting. The courts need to divert this kind of litigation to alternate dispute organizations and the more complex litigation needs to be with the trained judiciary. So I think it needs to be handled in that way. Yeah. I mean in the recently concluded a contrast of 2023 which was held at the Pakistan China Friendship Center here in Saba. I recall a prominent lawyer Babar Satar actually making that point. He basically said that you know the number of cases which the courts are actually flooded with. It's almost as if many judges and lawyers actually come out of the courts at ridiculous sometimes at midnight sometimes even beyond that because of the volume of cases but do you think that's more to do with you could say backlog that's not being paid attention to or is just the volume of cases that actually come to the court? It's backlog. It's 100% backlog. Yes. Like I said in the beginning of our discussion and then in about the last five years the volume has also increased. People are more of the people are reaching out to the courts. So that has increased but then the backlog is there. And there's backlog of of litigate of cases that actually can be resolved quickly. And there also needs to be more training with. I think the legal fraternity also needs to be to have a more regular training to be able to understand the difference between necessity and unnecessary litigation. So there is a lot of unnecessary litigation also being advised to clients. I see it all the time. I mean I have a lot of clients who come to me and it's always in the hands of the lawyer to advise them or you can you know challenge this also in court or challenge that also. Some things are unnecessary. Sometimes you can still get justice without making a lot of unnecessary litigation. So that needs to be reduced. The lawyer community needs to be educated more. The judiciary needs to sift and go through the cases and divert a certain section of the cases to other judicial institutes and let them handle that and they need to another very important thing. As I'm saying it is that there needs to be more more judges need to be hired. So many, many seats of judges all over the districts in Lahore in the big cities are vacant. So you must have been seeing this a lot in the newspapers as well. There was a lot of talk about this in the last couple of years. Hiring is very slow. Recruitment of judges is very, very slow. Seats are vacant. We are a huge country. We cannot afford that in a huge country. You're going to have people with legal problems. I always say that you will always need a lawyer and a doctor. So you will always have sick people and you will always have people with problems that need to be resolved complaints that need to be resolved legal cases. So you need to have a very robust legal judicial system there and that judicial system is going to be dependent on very well trained and good judges. And how is that going to happen? That can't happen with vacant seats. So we need more recruitment. These are some of the things, there are various issues, but these are some of them that need to be resolved before you can get rid of this backlog. And this backlog needs to be quickly out of the system for the judiciary to be strengthened as an institution. Right. So your experience with the ICRC, let's come to international humanitarian law. Now we talk about Asia is a continent which tends to be very dynamic and we all know what's happening in Gaza. We won't touch upon that right now, but if we take a look at the other disputes that are taking place, you talk about India's illegal annexation of Jammu and Kashmir, which is called illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir. And then you have the Nagorno-Karabakh crisis between Armenia and Azerbaijan, which is also resulted in casualties. And then you have tensions in the South China Sea. You're well aware of the human rights crisis in Afghanistan since the 2021 Taliban takeover. So many conflicts actually taking place. How do you see the applicability of international humanitarian law in Asia specifically? I'll come to Africa in a while, but in Asia specifically, do you think it's not applied universally? Do you think people violate IHL wantonly? Or do you think it's a bit of both? Hamza, I am going to be very truthful. So yes, I worked with the ICRC for four years. I am an expert in international humanitarian law from the Geneva Academy, and I did that on a full scholarship so you can understand my passion for the subject. I will not lie to say that I am so hopeless. And you said we would not touch upon the Gaza situation, but it is necessary to speak about that before I even comment on anything else. I think the humanitarian law machinery has failed. It does not exist. It's a facade because it's applied at whims and wishes. So if countries feel like applying it, they apply it. If they don't feel like applying it, they don't apply it. Although all of them are signatories, they're all signatories. It's part of their domestic laws. Pakistan is, you know, when you speak about various conventions, Pakistan is a signatory to various conventions. In South Asia, a lot of countries are signatory to various international treaties and conventions, but they're applied at whims and wishes. Look at the Gaza situation. Can you even feel that there is any humanitarian law or the word universality and be associated with humanitarian law anymore? It's become such a mockery that I don't even know how to tie in the rules of humanitarian law with reality anymore. How does one do that? How does one justify anything at all? Look at what's happening with the Afghans in Pakistan. It's all, I think it is all, it's not human laws. It's all policy. It's all crude and ruthless policy that is applied world over. I don't think that the humanitarian law and human rights law universally actually exists. I think these are just tools that governments are picking up. We as students of the law have studied it. We've spent many years. I don't know whether wasted or not, but I think they are just pulled by countries and governments to use for their own benefit as and when they like. Okay, no, I actually appreciate that. I'm actually very happy because this is something that's been argued by many prominent scholars. Not only of international humanitarian law, but also of international politics because the brand of neorealism and this ruthless, you could say, corporate elite, which is actually dictating decision making, is actually preventing or impeding human rights protection. It's as simple as that. And we're talking about the corporate elite. We're also talking about the intelligence here. We're talking about the establishment. We're talking about so many different, you could say, tiers. I mean, you were talking about the ICRC. The ICRC is the custodian of the Geneva Conventions. Where are the Geneva Conventions today? You know, the first four Geneva Conventions, civilians, wounded and sick, shipwrecked, people who are no longer the core of international humanitarian law says that do not attack those who have left the fighting or are not part of the fighting. I mean, what is happening today? There is world over silence while children are slaughtered, while hospitals are bombarded, while civilians are, you know, killed left, right and center. The numbers are phenomenal. Whereas do you think the Geneva Conventions even exist? Do you think they even matter? I mean, the entire world is sitting silently. So how else can we even speak of any other conflict? How can we apply international humanitarian law in such a bias manner? Are laws to be applied like that? As a student of law and as a student of international humanitarian law, I refuse to think that this law has any value anymore. It does not. In my eyes, it's been shattered over the last 55 days and especially with the world's silence. If the world was not silent, if the world was rooting for the Geneva Conventions, if the world was rooting for IHL and saying that, you know, the people are, I'm talking about governments. I'm talking about the parliaments all over who voted this law in, who made it their domestic legislation. If they were making noise, I would say there's still some potential in the law. But no, I honestly don't, I'm not hopeful anymore. Let's see, maybe there's some turn of events, something big happens. But until that the world, the parliaments in unison, world over are able to say that international humanitarian law applies universally. And you know, it is also part of customary law. You will not kill women, children and civilians in a time of conflict. You will not bombard hospitals. You will not bombard schools. You will not deny basic necessities of food, water to the population who are not part of the fighting. You will not allow illegal occupation, whether it is Kashmir or Palestine, until the world can say that, until parliaments all over the world can say that. Then till that time, what can a humble lawyer like myself say on the applicability of IHL? That's my very honest response to you. So I appreciate that. And on that realistic note, senior advocates, thank you so much for joining me on the show. I think it was enlightening. We got to know about the positives, the pros and cons of the judicial system within a country such as Pakistan. The applicability of the law within Pakistan and its applicability regionally as well, as well as how IHL is being openly flouted considerably. And we can just hope for a better world and a better future. So thank you so much for joining me on the show. Thank you so much, Hamza. Thank you so much for giving me this opportunity. And I look forward to seeing you again soon. You're welcome, likewise. So that's it for Ms. Lomba today on Think Tech Hawaii. I was here, you know, having this engaging discussion with senior advocates of Afarouk. Do provide us with your comments, feedback, everything on social media. Until next time, take care.