November 27, 2006	Monday	Ziqa'ad 5, 1427

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ISLAMABAD, Nov 26: Judges can successfully deal with huge backlog of court cases and reduce chronic delays in disposing of these cases by applying effective case-flow management techniques.

This was said by Federal Secretary, Ministry of Law, Justice and Human Rights Justice (retired) Mansoor Ahmed at the closing ceremony of a training workshop on ‘Case Flow Management’ here on Sunday.

The workshop was arranged by the Access to Justice Programme (AJP). Participants included the district, sessions and civil judges from all over the country.

Justice (retired) Mansoor Ahmed said it was an important training event of the AJP capacity building programme for judiciary.

The positive impact of these workshops and various other capacity building initiatives is now becoming visible, he noted, adding that the numbers of disposed of cases have now started exceeding the number of new cases instituted with the subordinate judiciary.

He said a very successful delay reduction project had been conducted in a number of districts of Sindh, Punjab and the NWFP. These pilot projects provided judges the opportunities to develop various solutions to combat the challenge of reducing the caseload of courts, he said, adding that the results were quite impressive.

The law and justice secretary expressed his satisfaction over the successful application of new techniques and skills to provide speedy justice to the poor and the needy ones in many district courts.

However, he urged the judiciary to work with more zeal and zest, and put their conscious efforts to tackle the delaying tactics of the offenders’ counsels and some of the police authorities.

While emphasising the need of speedy and time efficient justice, the federal secretary asked the judiciary not to accept pressure from any corner and decide cases on merit without any delay. It would help restore and maintain the confidence and trust of the citizens on the courts, he added.

Justice (retired) Mansoor Ahmed was of the view that the judiciary, particularly the district, sessions and civil judges had to play a key role in the success of overall justice sector reforms agenda of the government.

Counting on several initiatives launched under the Access to Justice Programme (AJP), he mentioned that the judiciary was being strengthened by providing improved infrastructure, new court complexes at district levels and by filling up vacant posts. These initiatives, he said, had started delivering results, and soon would be more visible.