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| July 15, 2003 | Tuesday | Jumadi-ul-Awwal 14, 1424 |
ADB provides $350m for judicial reforms
ISLAMABAD, July 14: Asian Development Bank (ADB) has provided technical assitance worth $350 million for judicial reforms in Pakistan.
It is the largest grant ever given to the law and justice department in the world.
According to details, the purpose of the assistance is to initiate pilot projects that will build institutional capacity within the judiciary of Pakistan in preparation for the Access to Justice Program (AJP).
A report published by the ADB said that the justice department in Pakistan was massively underfunded.
This led to an unchecked decline in the quality of judicial service despite efforts of many dedicated judges, said the report titled “strengthening of institutional capacity for judicial and legal reform”.
Most notably, the report said, the problems included delays of 5 to 20 years in disposal of cases, shortage of judges and courthouses, inadequate facilities and poorly paid judges.
In order to improve the capacity of the courts to manage and administer their performance, a comprehensive review of the judicial statistics system and a plan to professionalize the administration of the courts had been completed, the report said.
The first report on the performance of the courts was published in January 2003, which provided transparency and accountability by informing the public on the business of the courts in the country.
In order to improve the quality of judicial policy-making, the role and mandate of the law commission had been expanded to include responsibility for coordinating the administration of justice, the report said.
The commission would establish the Access to Justice Development Fund, comprising an endowment of $25 million to provide special funding for worthy purposes to improve the operation of the courts, the report said.
In another important move the office of the Member Inspection Team (MIT) would be strengthened to improve the capacity of the high courts of each province to monitor the performance of the courts.
In order to improve operational efficiency, an assessment of computer requirements of the courts had been completed, which provided a comprehensive blueprint for the acquisition and installation of more than 1,100 computers, the report said.
In due course the need for additional computers for the subordinate courts could be assessed and addressed, the report added.
In a major initiative to speed-up justice in the courts, the report said, a very successful delay-reduction project had been conducted in the subordinate courts of Sindh, Punjab and the North-West Frontier Province.
Pilot court judges experimented in developing solutions that had worked in Pakistan, building good relationships with the bars and focusing on reducing court backlogs with a very impressive result, the report added.
In just the first eight months pilot judges had improved performance by increasing their disposal of cases by almost 250%, it said.—APP
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