ISLAMABAD, Feb 24 (APP): The Federal Judicial Academy has arranged a workshop on “International Labour Standards and Labour Dispute Resolution” for Presiding Officers of the Labour Courts and Members, National Industrial Relations Commission.
The workshop was result of cooperation between the ILO Country Office for Pakistan, through its European Union (EU) funded project ‘Trade for Decent Work’ with the Federal Judicial Academy (FJA), said a press release issued here on Wednesday.
As many as 19 presiding officers of the labour courts coming from all provinces of Pakistan, along with two members of the National Industrial Relations Commission (NIRC) participated in the workshop. Supreme Court judge Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah was the chief guest at the concluding ceremony.
Addressing the participants of the workshop, Justice Mansoor said that speedy and fair justice for the workers who were real builders of the nation’s wealth and growth, should be the top most priority of the state.
He desired that the labour court judges being the dispute settlement managers for the most productive organs of the nation should wear a human rights cap and make full use of the whole corpus of the guarantees and the rights articulated in the country’s constitution, national, international and case laws to protect the social, economic and human rights of the workers for industrial peace, rapid economic and social growth in the country.
He maintained that the human resource employed to the labour was 65 million which was approximately 30 percent of the total population of the country but surprisingly there were only 10 thousand cases pending in the labour courts which gave way to two eventualities; either the working environment and rights of the labour were protected resulting into no disputes, or there is lack of awareness of rights and obligations and access to justice is not easy.
While referring the gigantic pendency of the ordinary cases in the courts, he weighed second eventuality as the most likely of the phenomenon, and mentioned lack of awareness of rights and constitutional guarantees to the workers and access to justice as reasons for referral of less disputes to the courts and tribunals.
He exhorted the civil society to play its role through awareness campaign of rights of the workman at the workplace and promoting public interest litigation (PIL) around the settlement of labour disputes.
Justice Mansoor maintained that improving the plight of the workers had two fold impact on the system, firstly it improves the micro socio-economic conditions of the workers, and then the industry grows giving huge macro-economic boost to the country.
He also highlighted the need for safeguarding the rights of the workers in the backdrop of Pakistan’s international cooperation for mega infrastructure development and trade in the country, CPEC being a part of it, and the challenges posed to the world of work by the ongoing COVID pandemic.
Reflecting upon the challenges, he called for humanization and further training of judges particularly in alternate labour dispute resolution, information and communication technologies, labour laws so that an adroit, robust and dynamic labour justice system could be promoted in the country.
He called upon ILO to work for improving the working conditions of the labour court judges and facilitating them through IT gadgets and other incentives making it the most desired assignment for the judges.
He thanked the ILO and European Union for their cooperation and collaboration and desired that the cooperation would be further deepened to cultivate a better world of work in Pakistan. He also desired that a joint sitting of the judiciary, executive and legislature should be planned at federal and provincial judicial academies for planning a corresponding way forward.
Hayay Ali Shah, Director General of the FJA in his concluding remarks thanked the ILO and EU for their generous support towards organizing this much-needed workshop and he hoped to continue the process forward for sustainable capacity development of the labour dispute resolution system in the country.
Mr. Ulrich Thiessen, First Secretary Development, European Union Delegation to Pakistan in his speech spoke about the trade incentives that Pakistan was benefiting from under its GSP+ status and he hoped that the sensitization of labour court judges to the international labour standards would result in improved compliance and enforcement of the fundamental labour standards which were part of the twenty seven UN treaties to whose compliance and reporting the GSP+ continuity is conditioned.
Ms. Ingrid Christensen, Director, ILO country office for Pakistan said that with a workforce of 65 million workers, their dependent families were also associated. Therefore the fundamental rights of the workers if stolen have an adverse impact on a much larger segment of the society thus hampering not only the socio-economic growth in the country but also hindering the progress of global sustainable development as articulated in the sustainable development goals.
She appreciated the Supreme Court’s resolve to holistically improve the world of work in Pakistan by including all the organs of the state, employers and workers in the efforts.
The workshop included presentations on international labour standards (ILS) and best practices in terms of their use in labour jurisprudence. The participants of the event were also introduced to the self-learning modules developed by the International Training Centre (ITC) of the ILO.
The participants of the workshop and the faculties of judicial academies can use these modules as per their own convenience for self-learning on ILS and thus completing relevant certifications. A session also reflected on work of the labour judiciary in Pakistan.
