Statement by India in response to statement made by Pakistan at the meeting of the United Nations Forum on Human Rights, Democracy and the Rule of Law, delivered by Dr. A. Sudhakara Reddy, Counsellor[Geneva, 23 November 2018]

Mr. Chair,

We thank all the panelists for their presentations and useful insights.

India expects that all Member States should respect the objective of the Forum and its purposes. The Forum should not be used by any participating Member States to project self propaganda and a channel of interference in the internal matters of other sovereign countries in the name of addressing challenges before the Parliament.

India is proud of playing its part in the historic struggle for decolonization. As a founding member of the NAM, India was at the forefront of the movement to secure the right of peoples to self-determination under alien subjugation, domination and exploitation, to freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development. The right to self-determination has been recognized for long as applicable to the peoples of non-self-governing colonies and trust territories. This concept cannot become an instrument to promote subversion and erode the political cohesion or territorial integrity and sovereignty of the Member states of the UN in contravention to the purposes and principles of the UN Charter.

The principle of self-determination espoused by Pakistan yesterday pose severe dangers to several countries in the world where multi-ethnic and multi-religious societies coexist. What is portrayed by Pakistan on self-determination is actually State-sponsored cross-border terrorism and the support actually means extending military, financial, logistical support to terrorism against India. Despite this continued aggression against the people of J&K and the proxy war raged by Pakistan, the people of J&K have repeatedly reposed their faith in the Indian democracy. Terrorism is the biggest challenge for parliamentary democracies in the world today which need to be addressed by Parliaments.

Further, Mr. Chair regarding the complementary role of judiciary and the Parliament, we take note of the observations made by panelist Ms. Irene Khan about the Indian practice. We further would like to add that the current jurisprudence of the Indian judiciary recognizes and enforces international human rights obligations without being domesticated by the parliament as long as they are in compliance with and not in contravention of fundamental rights guaranteed under part III of the Indian Constitution.

I, thank you Mr. Chair.