KARACHI, Sept 14: Sindh High Court Chief Justice Mushir Alam has said the verdicts of daring and intrepid judges are not tainted by compromise.

He said that if the judges were not brave and confident, their judgements would be affected and undermined.

The chief justice was speaking at the passing-out ceremony of civil judges, who were given certificates and laptops after completing three-month training, at the Sindh Judicial Academy on Saturday. The CJ said that judges must be appointed strictly on merit and added that it was a good sign that young people having modest background and hailing from remote parts of the province were now joining the judiciary as judicial officers.

He said that a society could not flourish without justice and added that stability of democracy was possible only with the rule of law.

Later, speaking at the annual convention of a woman lawyers’ forum, he said that he rejected a list of blue-eyed persons for selecting them as judges when he was elevated as the SHC chief justice.

He said that delay in the execution of convicts on death row was one of the main reasons behind the social decay and unrest in the society. “Everyone has to accept the court verdict, whether or not it is one’s favour,” he said.

The chief justice said that people should not waste their energies in confronting each other’s sect or ethnicity. “We are making more foes than friends”, he said.

CJ Alam said that Islamic laws were being presented in a distorted form, adding that there was no place of black laws like Karo-Kari or honour killing in Islam.