The Committee on the Rights of the Child, in their Concluding Observations on Pakistan’s 5th Periodic report on United Nations Conventions on the Rights of Child (UNCRC) in 2016, emphasized their concerns about the inadequate juvenile justice system in Pakistan. The Committee urged the Government of Pakistan to develop an appropriate age determination system for a child who committed a crime. The Observations call for reforms to be carried out on multiple fronts, including the detention of children in separate prisons from adult prisons, a review of the existing legislative framework, and the trial of children to be held exclusively in juvenile courts.
In light of these observations, the Government of Pakistan undertook a landmark step to reform the juvenile justice system by enacting the Juvenile Justice System Act (JJSA), 2018. The Government of Pakistan received much appreciation for this legislation from different tiers, including government departments, civil society organizations, and social activists. Amidst this appreciation, a rational analysis of the law is necessary to understand whether the JJSA deserves applause and reflects a positive step toward reforming juvenile justice at the international level.
This paper will answer this fundamental question by analyzing the Juvenile Justice System Act, 2018 (JJSA) in the context of the United Nations Conventions on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), the UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Administration of the Juvenile Justice known as the Beijing Rules, and the Guidelines for the Prevention of Juvenile Delinquency referred to as the Riyadh Guidelines. Deriving the critical concerns of the Committee on Rights of the Child, the legal definition of a child, social diversion mechanism, right to legal assistance, institutional correctional services, and the child’s best interest are the significant areas of discussion in this article.
