HYDERABAD: Lawyers boycotted proceedings before a model criminal trial court here on Monday in response to a call of lawyers’ bodies.

The model trial courts have been established under a decision of the National Judicial Policy Making Committee, which was being resisted by lawyers’ bodies, including the Pakistan Bar Council (PBC) and Sindh Bar Council (SBC).

Around 30 cases are to be decided by the Hyderabad model trial court, but lawyers are not appearing before it in line with lawyers’ bodies’ decision. Reports said that even prosecutors were not appearing in the courts and in some cases advocates who were appointed counsel for accused also declined to appear.

Former High Court Bar Association (HCBA) general secretary Ishrat Lohar said that since he did not appear before the Mirpurkhas district’s model criminal court, his client was sentenced to 25 years of imprisonment by the court on Monday.

HCBA president Nisar Durrani said that concluding trial in four days was not possible as was reflected from anti-terrorism courts (ATCs) which were set up under special law, but failed to dispose of cases in seven days as required under the law. He said that in such speedy trials, either complainant or the accused would be affected and ultimate burden of appeal would lie on higher courts.

He wondered how could a murder case be finalised in four days and trial court judge take view to either acquit the accused or award punishment which could be death sentence as well. He maintained that one option was that timeline for concluding trial could be extended from four days to 20 or 25 days possibly.

He stated that usually not all the cases were delayed because of defence’s side, it was often prosecution that led to adjournments. Multiple number of witnesses were to be examined and cross-examined in a murder case, which was not possible in four days, he said.

Published in Dawn, April 23rd, 2019