HYDERABAD: Caretaker Sindh Minister for Law Omar Soomro has said that provincial government is mulling over live streaming of courts’ proceedings and allowing litigants to pursue progress on their cases on their smart phones.

The minister said at a gathering of the Hyderabad District Bar Association (HDBA) members here on Thursday that a summary in this regard would be sent to the caretaker chief minister shortly.

He expressed hope that Justice Qazi Faez Isa would form a full or larger bench to decide cases of constitutional nature after he became Chief Justice of Pakistan.

He said that he was expecting judicial reforms aimed at ensuring speedy justice once Justice Isa, who had himself and his spouse faced a false a reference was sworn in as the CJP.

He said that Sindh’s bars had been complaining about incumbent CJP that other judges on the bench. Justice Mansoor Ali Shah had said that some matters were eventually to be decided by parliament, he said.

He said that bars’ complaints would come to an end soon and they would show their confidence in the new CJP which had been shaken previously.

He clarified that he was not expressing his lack of confidence in anyone and he was just praying for positive change in future.

Soomro said that caretaker government wanted to address all issues of bars. High court bars had been complaining about out-of-turn promotions which always damaged morale of judges, he said.

He said that Supreme Court could not frame rules and hoped that the practice of out-of-turn promotions would finally be discontinued. The caretakers had been given a mandate to govern for 90 days, he said.

He said that caretaker chief minister had asked him to meet all needs of bars.

The bars had demanded so many things which had annoyed some judges as well but “we want that lawyers should be given books in addition to laptops”, he said.

Published in Dawn, September 1st, 2023