What can a citizen do if they see blatant abuse of the law by a citizen, a company, or even a government official? Does the citizen feel helpless and frustrated, and fear for his/her safety if they raise the alarm? The majority of citizens are unable to report the abuse or cannot afford a lawyer to get justice.
Role of ‘Civil Society’
‘Civil society’ is a human society grounded in and held together by shared norms and moral customs. Individuals living in a society interact and share common values, beliefs, and practices, forming a sense of community and belonging. To create harmony, rules and regulations are crafted by their representatives in the government over time. These include promises like access to education, freedom of speech, protection of property, health and sanitation norms, minority rights, etc. On a macro level, these civil society ‘rights’ are captured in the fundamental rights section of a country’s constitution.
Unfortunately, not everyone in a society follows these rules. Hence, it is incumbent on the rulers to make sure laws are followed. Sometimes, the government or its agencies transgress or infringe upon the law. In such cases, it is up to civil society to push back and ensure the rule of law is followed. But does a citizen have enough clout or resources to take on the mafia gangs or the government or its agencies? This is where Civil Rights Organizations play a critical role.
Civil Rights Organizations
In most countries, apolitical non-profit organizations exist to help civil society fight for its rights. Examples include the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU, 1920) in the USA, the People’s Union for Civil Liberties in India (PUCL, 1976), and the National Council for Civil Liberties in the UK (NCCL, 1934).
In Pakistan, a group of concerned citizens founded the Public Interest Law Association of Pakistan (PILAP; https://pilap.pk) in 2011 with a simple vision: “A Pakistan where fundamental rights are enjoyed by all”.
Stalwarts in their own right, the founding members of PILAP included Nasir Aslam Zahid (ex CJ of Pakistan), Salima Hashmi (Artist/Painter), Khalid Mirza (ex-Chairmans of SECP, Competition Commission), Nasira Iqbal (jurist and daughter-in-law of Allama Iqbal), Aftab Nabi (ex-IG Police Sindh), Nasim Beg (CEO of Arif Habib Investments), Rafay Alam (Activist Lawyer), Mohammad Akmal Wasim, Kazim Hasan, and finally Dr. Amjad Waheed (CEO of NBP Funds) who on his return from USA envisioned the creation of such an organization to protect and promote fundamental rights.
To get a feel of the power of Civil Rights Organisations (CRO), let me share some key contributions of the ACLU over the last 100+ years in the USA. Today, they have a network of more than 4 million individual active members. The ACLU employs over 500 staff attorneys. Some of their judgments shaped legal history by influencing future laws, practices, and social attitudes.
Some of their prominent wins include:
· Scopes Trial (1925) in which the ACLU defended a biology teacher in Tennessee for violating the ban on teaching about evolution. ACLU shoots to national fame.
· Brown v Board of Education (1954), in which state laws that allowed public school districts to separate students based on race were declared unconstitutional.
· Roe v Wade (1973), in which the US Supreme Court allowed reproductive rights to women.
OWN YOUR RIGHTS
Since arriving in Pakistan in 1993, after spending fifteen years abroad, studying and later working for P&G on two continents, I struggled when I saw inequity, disrespect for the law, poor access to justice, and all this made me feel very frustrated and disappointed. How can I be part of a solution without becoming a public figure or a politician?
Then one day in 2014, I heard about PILAP. I was overjoyed to hear such an organization existed in Pakistan, though still in its infancy. I wrote to them about various civil society issues and had a debate on what could be done to fix them. PILAP Board was very happy that they had come across a citizen-cum-activist with strong corporate experience and offered that I become its chairman. I waited until 2016, and when I retired from Gillette Pakistan, I became its 3rd chairman.
I felt elated to have found an organization whose purpose is to protect the fundamental rights of Pakistani citizens. Funding was a challenge. We tried many avenues, but it wasn’t easy to fix sustainability, as many citizens in Pakistan do not understand public interest and hence do not support it.
Launching PILAP’s Citizens’ Assembly in 2022
The driving force behind PILAP is a group of dedicated members known as the Citizens’ Assembly (CA). This group operates democratically; it meets biannually to vote on the matters of public interest that the organisation will pursue each year.
CA allows us to kill two birds with one stone. Members feel empowered as they drive the PILAP strategy, and in turn, their membership fees drive sustainability. CA members pay Rs 100k per year. We have kept our feasibility model simple, in which income from just 100 CA members will make our basic operating model sustainable.
Time-Tested Tangible Achievements
For over a decade, PILAP has been working across fundamental rights and has delivered impressive results with a basic organization comprising just three to four employees. Imagine if we had funding to raise this number to ten or twenty?
To date, PILAP has filed 20+ public interest petitions and has achieved 13 victories in court (3 are reported judgements). We have also filed over 500+ right to information (RTI) requests in which we have pushed for government transparency and accountability. Here are a few examples of our efforts:
Environmental Safeguards:
The writer is Chairman of the Public Interest Law Association of Pakistan (PILAP).
Leave a Reply