Juvenile Justice System in Pakistan: An Analysis of the Juvenile Justice System Act, 2018

Abstract

Juvenile justice system is indicative of a society that believes in rehabilitation, protection and acknowledging children as persons with rights, not as mini adults in the criminal process. The Juvenile Justice System Act, 2018 in Pakistan is one of the high-profile legislative initiatives to address the treatment of the children in conflict with the law in Pakistan through harmonization of the domestic legal frameworks with the constitutional guarantees and international standards of child rights. The present paper is a critical analysis of juvenile justice system in Pakistan, in terms of Juvenile justice system Act, 2018, with regard to its legal foundation, institutionalization, and implementation. It postulates that the Act in its introduction of the progressive principles: diversion, rehabilitation, child-friendly procedures, and ban on harsh punishment is limited to transformational capacity due to structural weakness, institutional capacity, and inconsistent enforcement.

The paper examines the way the Act will change the juvenile justice paradigm to lessen punishment and more towards rehabilitation which includes alternatives to detention, specialized juvenile courts, legal assistance, and protection against abuse. Simultaneously, it also indicates that there are significant obstacles in the form of insufficient awareness regarding law enforcement agencies, insufficient juvenile rehabilitation infrastructure, delays in age identification, and discrepancies in the provision of protection irrespective of the area. Such implementation loopholes compromise the purposes of the Act, subject the juveniles to lengthy imprisonment, and procedural infractions, and other rights violations. Placing the Juvenile Justice System Act, 2018 in the context of the larger Nepal constitutional and criminal justice framework, the article shows that a reform of juvenile justice needs to go beyond just the legislative creativity. It finds that the effective implementation of the objectives of the Act would require long-term institutional change, judicial review, capacity-building of stakeholders, and a rights-based willingness to also view juveniles as objects of protection and not objects of control.