Balochistan charts a way forward in developing a statutory monitoring unit and investigator-prosecution coordination mechanism at the 11th Pakistan Prosecution Forum

29 July 2021, Islamabad, Pakistan - Pakistan Prosecution Forum is a national platform hosted by UNODC that brings together high-level provincial stakeholders from the prosecution and where relevant other CJ institutions play a role at the national level to mutually discuss and deliver policies and mechanisms that harmonize and support effective delivery of prosecution services in the provinces.

The eleventh PPF was held in Islamabad on 29th July 2021. This was the first consultative session proudly hosted by UNODC under the auspices of the recently launched EU-funded programme of ‘Promoting the Rule of Law and Enhancing the Criminal Justice System in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa including Newly Merged Districts and Balochistan’.

The participants of the PPF were drawn from across the senior officials of prosecution departments of the provinces who engaged in meaningful discourse to advance discussions around the objectives of the PPF that focused on reviewing draft provisions of the Balochistan Prosecution Act; statutory provisions supporting a monitoring unit and investigation-prosecution coordination mechanism; role of province and districts in implementation of the Act, digitalization with respect to the development and finalization of Case Management and Monitoring System (CMMS) for Prosecution Department.

The draft proposal on the Balochistan Prosecution Act is a manifestation of the overwhelming ownership and response garnered through the proposed recommendations on the investigator-prosecution coordination mechanism agreed in the previous PPF in February 2021. The participants also discussed the possibilities of establishing a Monitoring Unit in the Secretary Prosecution’s office in Balochistan. The individual roles of the province and districts were also outlined given the strategic and policy guidance by the province and implementation support from the districts as operational arm of the mechanism. The Forum also agreed to ensure that the statutory provisions of prosecution, police and levies are consistent and aligned to each other, thoroughly discussed and endorsed by the concerned stakeholders. 

The role of PPF was unanimously appreciated as a joint learning platform that brings together synergies among the provinces to continuously work towards enhancing the rule of law for the citizens. To this end, the 11th PPF agreed on the need to enhance collaboration between Punjab and KP to improve prosecution systems through mutual learning visits to understand and learn more about the operational modalities with respect to innovations in the respective provinces that can help to harmonize delivery of services across the board as KP and Punjab are set to formally launch CMMS and Case Flow Management System (CFMS) in the coming days.