The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Wednesday granted 14 days to the federal government to implement the Transgender Persons (protection of rights) Act 2018. A petition filed in the court pleaded to the bench that the court had ordered the government to devise rules and guidelines for implementation of the transgender persons’ rights law, but the law yet to come into force. Deputy Attorney General, told the court (SHC) that the rules for the law have been hammered out and soon to be approved by the federal cabinet. The government will also set up protection centre for transgender persons, DAG further said. “Devising rules for the law not required that much time, which you have you have spent,” the bench remarked.“The matter delayed due to the Covid-19 pandemic,” federal government law officer said. “The rules for the law have been devised with the help from transgender community and 14 organizations were consulted over the matter,” the law officer further said.The court (SHC) granted 14 days to the federal government to implement the rules of Transgender Persons (protection of rights) Act 2018. The court had in an earlier proceeding over the matter last year, had directed the ministry of human rights to notify rules and relevant guidelines within 60 days and implement the law in letter and spirit. The parliament passed the law in May 2018 guaranteeing basic rights for transgender citizens and outlawing discrimination by both employers and private business owners, a move hailed by activists as “historic” for the conservative South Asian country. The law accords citizens the right to self-identify as male, female or a blend of both genders, and to have that identity registered on all official documents, including National Identification Cards, passports, driver’s licenses and education certificates. The law guarantees citizens the right to express their gender as they wish, and to a gender identity that is defined as “a person’s innermost and individual sense of self as male, female or a blend of both, or neither; that can correspond or not to the sex assigned at birth”.
