GILGIT, May 7: The lawyers in Northern Areas gave a mixed reaction to the recent developments in the region’s higher judiciary but majority agreed that the judiciary is yet to become independent. At a survey by the reporters it was revealed that the lawyers community is dissatisfied over the fresh steps taken by the government in connection with reforming the Northern Areas judiciary.
Reacting over the formation of Court of Appeals and appointment of judges in the Northern Areas Chief Court a prominent lawyer and Baloristan Labour Party chief organizer Advocate Ahsan Ali said: “The government has simply maintained the status quo by recruiting the retired judges on contract basis and without granting the higher courts an independent status”.
He opposed a crippled and dependent judiciary in the region.
Mr Ali said: “These new appointments (of judges) at the Appellet and Chief courts remind us of the colonial system as this would further perpetuate the relics of the colonial era in the region.
He called upon the Chief Justice of Pakistan to take suo motu action against these appointments in the higher judiciary of the Northern Areas which he said was an utter violation of the SC decision about the region on May 28, 1999.
The Northern Areas High Court Bar Association president Advocate Asadullah said, “though the judiciary in the Northern Areas had been completed, it was still crying under the cruel clutches of the executive authority which he termed as unprecedented, unwarranted and not appealing to any man of common prudence.
Mr Khan added the establishment of Appellate Court for Northern Areas was a longstanding demand of the Young Lawyers and they initiated a movement in 2002 and thanked the government for fulfilling this demand. He said however an independent judiciary in Northern Areas would remain their demand which he said could be ensured if the judiciary was de-linked from the KANA (Kashmir and Northern Areas Affairs Division) and made subordinate to the Supreme Judicial Council of Pakistan.
A lawyer and leader of Karakoram National Movement Mumtaz Hussain Nagaree said that they would boycott the courts against the contract system in the judiciary as this ad hocism had aggravated the deprivation in the region.
SUB-STANDARD FOOD: Most of the hotels on the Karakoram Highway provide sub-standard and unhygienic food to their customers.
Brick floors of these hotels are covered with layers of grease and dirt which become slippery whenever it rains here. Food prices have gone exorbitantly high, while the quality of both services and food have deteriorated considerably, said Sajjad Hussain, a medical student who visits here frequently, while dining at a hotel in Chilas.
At peak hours — during lunch break and in the evenings when buses stops in a stay area — the passengers complain that sometime they are served with half-cooked or stale food. “When you ask for food to be changed, the waiters refuse saying served food is not taken back or refund made, said Engineer Moazzam Ali who comes here regularly.
Another common complaint is that gutters remain choked most of the time.