The Federal Minister for Law, Justice and Human Rights Wasi Zafar has said that no gender discrimination is being observed in the country and the law provides equal opportunities without any discrimination.
In a statement issued here on Monday, he said the women have equal access to representation, job opportunities and education and the violations and maltreatment meted out to women is not indicative of any weakness in the legal system.
He said the criminal and vicious minded people exist in every society and these social evils and practices need to be discouraged.
He further said that there is no mechanism anywhere in the world to stop crimes and criminal acts completely. Criminal justice system in the country is very responsive to gender based crimes but crime against women or crime in general can be curtailed by taking every individual case seriously, by acting upon laws, rules and developing the systems, he added.
Some NGOs and media, the minister said are trying to malign Pakistan's image by labelling all social evils or criminal acts as human rights violation. There is difference between a crime and human rights violation, which can be curtailed by legislation, and acting upon laws in letter and spirit, he said and added that in this regard the ministry is working on community empowerment and mass awareness programme.
The minister said that women and minorities enjoy more freedom, equality of treatment and equality of opportunities in Pakistan as compared to most of the other countries in the world.
He further said that the media should discourage negative propaganda and be responsive in promoting a positive image of the country. The ministry is working on various judicial reforms that would accelerate the judicial process and facilitate the access of common man to justice, he added.
Wasi Zafar said that the various judicial proposals the ministry is working on include, separation of criminal and civil courts, division of the suits into pre-trial and trial stage, reduction of appeals and discouragement of reviews and revisions, implementation of alternate dispute resolution mechanism and the proper usage of mediation methods. Also the proposal for establishment of Constitutional, Civil, and Commercial divisions in High Court is under consideration, he added.
Time limit would be fixed for disposal of cases, appeals and revisions, inspection wings are proposed to be established in High Courts, separation of minor offences trial and their summary procedures, and fast track courts would be created to deal with exclusive matters, he added.