Ensuring Fair Trial In Workplace Harassment Cases: A Doctrinal Analysis Under Pakistan’s Protection Against Harassment Of Women At The Workplace Act, 2010

Abstract

The legal landscape of Pakistan is multi fold and provides various categories of legal instruments dealing with the basic rights of the people including right to fair trial. Thus, ensuring a fair trial is a crucial part of the justice system which should be upheld in all institutions and in all cases including cases of Workplace Harassment. The Protection against harassment of women at workplace Act 2010 is the primary statute on the subject and provides detailed procedure for dealing with the cases of workplace harassment. The Act was amended in 2022 through the ‘Protection Against Harassment of Women at the Workplace (Amendment) Act 2022 ensuring that both parties to the suit are ensured the basic right to a fair trial. Denial of this right at any forum means justice is not served. The main hurdle in the maintenance of justice remains the under reporting and in most circumstances no reporting of the harassment cases despite availability of the appropriate forums. This Article is an effort to investigate through doctrinal research approach the hurdles and obstacles that hinder the reporting, fair procedure and consequently the transparent adjudication of the harassment cases. This article touches upon all relevant laws, provisions, judicial precedents and quasi-judicial forums available for addressing workplace harassment cases at government, semi-government and private entities. Furthermore, it evaluates how the case processes are carried out at all above mentioned forums and how transparent and fair they are. Additionally, following the evaluation, a relevant guide as to how the processes shall be carried out will be provided, which includes: fair treatment, following statutory mechanism, developing code of conduct and report mechanism so as to ensure a safe workplace environment.