KARACHI: Keeping in view the prevailing problems in the country, former chief justice of Pakistan Gulzar Ahmed has urged parliament to make necessary amendments to the outdated laws for quick dispensation of justice and suggested appointing more judges on the basis of population to overcome the shortage of judges at district and lower courts.

He was speaking at a seminar “Justice Delayed Justice Denied: Challenges for Pakistan’s Justice System and Possible Solutions” organised by the Pakistan Council on Foreign Relations on Thursday.

The former top adjudicator said parliament and the executive were facing a tough time and there were challenges for their ‘survival’, but they must spend more time to update laws and ensure that access to justice was made available to more and more people by formulating easy procedures.

“Although, it is a tall task, but a real motivated government, which has a real interest in people of Pakistan and has come with popular vote to deliver to the people, should take up all these issues,” he added.

Parliament urged to amend outdated laws to improve judicial system

He called upon the government to increase the strength of judges, especially at district judiciary and high courts. He was of the view that number of judges could be decided on the basis of population.

The former CJP made several suggestions, including increasing the strength of judges, filling vacant posts of judges, penalising frivolous litigants, discouraging unjustified adjournments and time frame for hearing of a case in order to improve judicial system and timely disposal of cases.

Retired Justice Ahmed further said that the government should constitute commissions and committees and involve lawyers and civil society to come up with suggestions for disposal of cases as early as possible.

He was of the view that Law and Justice Commission of Pakistan was especially established for dealing with issues of delay and timely disposal of cases and for suggesting amendments to laws and it had done substantial amount of work in this regard by making suggestions to parliament, but incidentally they never seen the light of the day.

The ex-CJP also stated that the National Judicial Policy Making Committee constituted by the Supreme Court and headed by the incumbent CJP had been constantly deliberating on the issue of pending cases and early disposal and tried various tools to ensure that cases were decided as early as possible.

He maintained that it was not in the interest of judges to prolong the cases, but there was unlimited system of hearings in Pakistan as lawyers were not giving any time limit to complete arguments while in the US and other countries one-hour time was fixed to complete the same.

“Mediation and arbitration are good tools through which most of the cases could be avoided from landing in courts, but the relevant law was formulated in 1940 and minimum amendments have so far been made in it,” he said and suggested that it had to be brought up to meet existing conditions.

He said that there were some systematic problems as judges were dealing with the system provided by the law; there were lengthy procedures which have to be followed while deciding the cases.

The miscellaneous matters are keeping the courts occupied and taking so much time of judges that they could not have enough time to hear main cases and decide the same, he argued.

Justice Ahmed further said that retired Justice Mushir Alam had made substantial progress in computerisation of court records, but could not achieve final results due to his retirement and hoped that the same will be completed soon.

Speaking on the occasion, senior lawyers Anwar Mansoor Khan and Salahuddin Ahmed said that Pakistani judiciary was ranked 128 in the world.

They also made several recommendations to improve the judicial system, including amendments to outdated laws as well as court rules, action over filing frivolous cases, digitisation of courts and appointment of judges on merit and their proper training.

Published in Dawn, March 10th, 2023