KARACHI: Chief Justice of Pakistan Anwer Zaheer Jamali on Saturday highlighted the need and importance of using Urdu, the national language of Pakistan, for all official and other purposes.

Addressing as a chief guest at the National Round-table Conference on Judicial Education, he said it was the constitutional obligation to implement the use of Urdu for official purposes under Article 251 of the constitution.

He said the constitutional provision required the government to make arrangements to implement Urdu for official and other purposes within 15 years of the commencement of the constitution. He said that 28 years elapsed since the constitutional deadline for implementing the use of the national language, but the federal and provincial governments failed to fulfil their constitutional obligation.

The CJP said there was little progress in this direction in the country except for the province of Sindh. “It’s very unfortunate that due importance is not given to the national language,” he said.

He said it was high time that the national language be used in legal proceedings to overcome the problems in the judicial system.

He said judicial officers and lawyers faced a great deal of inconvenience due to use of English language in legal proceedings.

Published in Dawn, May 8th, 2016