assessment standard.55 Thus, even by some tinkering with the existing laws and policy
instruments, the Government may validly claim that it has followed the directives issued
by the HCD.
In most of the cases, the directives issued by their Lordships stipulate what needs
to be done but does not provide for any punishment for their non-compliance. As
according to the doctrine of separation of powers, it is the prerogative of the legislature to
legislate and the court’s only to interpret the laws, it is understandable that the HCD
could not provide for punishment for the non-compliance with its directives. That said,
this feature of the judgment is probably its first and foremost limitation as opposed to a
statutory law as a tool for the protection and promotion of child workers.
Generally, most of the directions have been issued at the Government without
mentioning any particular agency of the Government and vesting them with any specific
responsibility. Of course, it is for the Government to decide who would do what to
implement the directives of the HCD. Hence, just that the directives are not being
addressed to any specific agency of the Government cannot in any away absolve the
Government of its responsibilities to honour them. However, if specific Government
agencies were imposed upon specific obligations relating to domestic works by children,
clearly their performance could have been monitored much more easily and that could
have helped to ensure their accountability.
In some cases, one may be excused for arguing that the directives issued are
simply quixotic or too sketchy to engender intended outcomes. For example, in a country
like Bangladesh where most of the population do not get any facility for periodic medical
check-up, a law demanding that all employers of domestic workers would provide for
health check-up of workers at least once in every two months- seems to be a little too far
ahead of time. Thus, the jittery attitude or reluctance of the legislators regarding the
enactment of a law for implementing this provision can too some extent, be understood.
55
For example, monitoring the cases of violence against the domestic workers and ensuring prosecution of
the perpetrators may arguably be achieved simply by setting up monitoring cells to look into this.
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