This May, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) is due to appear before the International Coordinating Committee of National Institutions for the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights in Geneva for its re-accreditation as an ‘A' grade institution.
Ahead of this process, a consortium of non-governmental organisations released a report here on Wednesday on the compliance of the NHRC with the ‘Paris Principles' on the protection and promotion of human rights.
The report, which comes down heavily on the functioning of the Commission, was endorsed by prominent members of the judiciary and human rights activists at its release here by the former NHRC chairperson, J.S. Verma.
“When the NHRC chairperson is in the news for all the wrong reasons, how will the organisation have any credibility before the public?” wondered Justice Verma, also a former Chief Justice of India. The NHRC had been an effective watchdog for protecting human rights, but now risked becoming “a sinecure for retired persons.”
The idea of having a Chief Justice at the helm of the NHRC was to “ensure that a person who is committed to human rights would lead by example.”
If that was not the case, “there are many others to choose from.”
The report describes the NHRC's relationship with civil society as “very limited” and notes that “its lack of independence” has become “debilitating to the extent of paralysis.”
It says: “A majority of complaints are dismissed by the NHRC wholly on the basis of state responses or police reports that deny the violations.”
In arriving at its conclusions, the report has relied largely on information received from the NHRC in response to several petitions under the Right to Information Act. It was lauded by Justic3 Verma for steering clear of commentary.
The former U.N. Special Rapporteur, Miloon Kothari, and human rights activist Kavita Srivastava said human rights defenders were being afforded “no protection by the NHRC.”
