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LAHORE, March 15: A number of legal reforms will be introduced by mid-April to prevent the notorious legal delays and provide for speedy justice, Acting President and Chief Justice Sheikh Riaz Ahmad said here on Friday.
Addressing a reception hosted in his honour by the Punjab Bar Council, the CJ particularly mentioned family matters and rent cases for prompt disposal. Summary procedure was provided by special laws for their disposal but it soon relapsed into ordinary procedure prescribed for adjudication of civil suits.
The CJ mainly blamed shortage of judicial manpower for legal delays. There was paucity of judges, staff and accommodation. He has asked the chief justices of all four high courts to send their requirements of judicial officers and accommodation for courtrooms to him.
A civil judge, the CJ said, wore four caps. He decided civil suits, rent cases, family matters and criminal cases as judicial magistrate. Lahore High Court Chief Justice Falak Sher had done well to allocate civil and criminal matters to separate sets of civil judges, he said.
Summary procedure would be laid down for more disputes. Former chief justice Irshad Hasan Khan had done a lot of work in this respect and the Pakistan Law Commission would meet soon to discuss various proposals, he said.
STATUTORY CJC: The CJ indicated that statutory cover would be provided to the Chief Justices Committee and its decisions. He agreed with the Punjab Bar Council Vice-Chairman Ramzan Chaudhry that the Bar and the Bench were wheels of the same chariot. There should be coordination between them and if it was lacking, there should be efforts to bring them together. He invited a delegation of the Bar to meet him to talk things over.
The CJ shared the concern expressed by the PBC Chairman, Advocate-General Maqbool Ilahi Malik, over the declining standard of legal education. Mushroom growth of law colleges and the number of graduates they were churning out were a matter of grave concern for the legal profession. He urged lawyers to come prepared with their briefs instead of preparing their cases in the courtrooms.
Delay in disposal of family matters, the CJ said, hit the womenfolk hard. Poor women had to run from pillar to post for divorce, maintenance, dower and dowry and custody of children. Under the reforms being contemplated, all matters involved in a family case would be consolidated and decided simultaneously and all reliefs would be given in one suit, he emphasized.
Describing himself as ‘a child of the Bar’, the CJ announced a grant of Rs200,000 for the Punjab Bar Council and assured it that other demands would be sympathetically considered.
