Good step

The decision of the National Centre for Human Rights (NCHR) to visit various regions of the country, starting with the Mafraq area, to receive complaints of human rights violations is a good, and original, step.

Many people whose human rights are violated may not even know about the existence of NCHR to start with.

Those who do may find it troublesome to travel to Amman, where the centre’s office is, to lodge their complaints.

Going to the alleged victims is workable and necessary. It is also a sign that NCHR is serious about addressing the issue and determined to follow through on all allegations of human rights abuses.

For the time being, NCHR gives priority to certain categories of human rights violations, mostly related to children, women, the elderly and people with disabilities, but it can be expected to expand the scope of its activities to cover other human rights aspects.

More important will be to see what effective measures NCHR will take to provide remedies to victims of human rights violations.

Receiving complaints is the easy thing. More complicated, and in need of determined work, will be corroborating allegations, establishing their veracity and taking effective measures to address them.

So far, this human rights institution has no authority to issue binding rulings on human rights violations. That renders it powerless, a mere gatherer of data.

As such, authorities should consider setting up a national human rights court as the most effective mechanism to deal with human rights violations, a court whose rulings can be enforced just like those of other courts.

Redress of human rights violations through administrative measures cannot be a substitute for judicial interventions.

If such a court is established, it must be run by individuals well versed in both national and international human rights jurisprudence.