India: States should make rights commissions more effective, says NHRC

National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) Chairperson Mr. Justice K.G. Balakrishnan said all state governments should take steps to strengthen their state human rights commissions.

Addressing a meeting of representatives of state human rights commissions, Justice Balakrishnan said that merely establishing state human rights commission would not serve any purpose if they were not provided with sufficient manpower and infrastructure for their effective functioning.

He also said states which do not have human rights commission should also take steps to set up them as soon as was practicable.

State governments need to appreciate that human rights commissions are meant to facilitate good governance and that they have been set up to help the administration and the people of the country achieve their social, cultural and economic rights, Justice Balakrishnan said.

The NHRC, however, appreciated the cooperation being received from states, as 99 per cent of its recommendations had been implemented, he added.

Justice Balakrishnan said the NHRC could assist in providing material and resource persons to state human rights commissions for the training of their personnel in human rights. He hoped state human rights Commissions would improve their complaint management systems with the assistance of NHRC.

There are 18 human rights commissions in the country, and recently, the governments of Jharkhand and Sikkim also notified constitution of state human rights commissions.

During the discussions, subjects taken up included addressing the large volume of complaints on human rights violations, lack of manpower, financial and infrastructural resources.

State Human Rights Commissions were of the view that a mechanism should be developed to ensure uniformity in deployment of manpower in state human rights commissions, either in accordance with the population or the number of complaints received in each state.

Earlier, Secretary General, NHRC, K.S. Money, welcomed participants and hoped that closer interaction between the NHRC and the state human rights commissions would help in formulating joint strategies to tackle emerging challenges in the area of human rights protection and promotion.

Date: 17 August 2010

Source: Sify News