THIS is with reference to the report ‘CJP reminds bar of his prerogative to form benches’ (March 26). I was genuinely impressed by the extempore speech by the Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP), Justice Umar Ata Bandial, during the full court reference to bid farewell to Justice Qazi Mohammad Amin Ahmed. Unfortunately, the print and electronic media picked up only one aspect of the speech to highlight; the power to form benches. But, to me, there was a lot more than what has been focussed upon.

It was refreshing and reinvigorating when the chief justice expressed his desire that the judges of the highest calibre and experts in their respective fields should be selected for the apex courts.

In response to the point raised by the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) president, that the principles of meaningful and purposeful appointments to the top court should be formulated, the chief justice came up with the four-pronged selection criterion of the judges in higher courts, which include integrity, competence, capacity to deliver and judicial temperament.

As a student of law, I believe that if the same criterion is adopted at the grassroots level in district judiciary, and the law is amended that after one trial and only one appeal, to be heard by the double bench of additional/district judges at the district level, there should be no second appeal or revision before the high court unless the court verdict is substantially executed, the burden of higher courts can be lessened to a great degree.

About the training of the judges of the district judiciary, it is notable that at present, judicial academies are imparting training on the pattern of classroom lectures without knowing the weak or strong areas of each candidate.

I would suggest that the training should be imparted like precision medicine. After proper assessment of each judge, his capacity should be reinforced. For that, a syllabus settled by the judicial academies should be dispatched to those judges of the district judiciary, sitting in promotion zone, some two to three months prior to their training, and then they should be assessed by the academies on five modules; language proficiency, civil law, criminal law, local and special law, and fieldwork evaluation.

Muhammad Ejaz Raza
Additional District and Sessions Judge
Faisalabad

Published in Dawn, April 2nd, 2022