The obligation to respect identity means that state must refrain from actively interfering with the individual’s identity. This responsibility encompasses protection from arbitrary denial of identity documents, as that directly violates the individuals right to identity, and interferes with her name and ties to family, place and nation.
The obligation to protect identity means that state must take necessary measures to prevent others from interfering with the individual’s identity. On a global level, this responsibility requires states to register their populations, since civil registration in turn protects citizens and other individuals within a state’s territory from vulnerability to criminal activity like human trafficking, forced prostitution, bonded labour, etc. Therefore, guaranteeing a national identity document to those aged 18 and above is integral to ensuring protection from criminal activity and general menaces which tend to benefit from the lack of identity documentation of individuals, especially vulnerable population groups like women, persons with disabilities, indigenous people, transgender persons etc.
The obligation to fulfill identity means that States must progressively ensure that each person has opportunities to develop her identity. It is equally important to ensure that the State promotes the dynamic development of an individual’s identity by providing them with the right to change or rectify collected personal data. Exactly what the petitioner before this Court wanted to do and has succeeding in doing!
Applying this obligation to the present case, the denial of a CNIC is a blatant violation of the right to identity as such denial is an unlawful interference with the said right. The right to identity is a fundamental, non-derogable, independent and autonomous right which is rooted in human dignity and preserves each human’s distinct existential interest. Therefore, it is immaterial whether the national framework expressly includes this right. For example, in the case of Pakistan, the Constitution of Pakistan does not expressly include a ‘right to identity’, as such and it is deduced from a range of positively recognized rights and principles of policy. These include, inter alia, the right to life, inviolability of dignity, and equality of citizens. It is a concomitant right of such positive rights.
W.P. No. 7102 of 2020
Zarmeen Versus National Database and Registration Authority , etc
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