What Ails the Justice System?

In the criminal justice system, the situation is also very bad. Unusual delays occur in criminal cases. For example, Ghulam Sarwar and Ghulam Qadir, two brothers, were executed by prison authorities a year before the Supreme Court eventually pronounced them innocent. They were acquitted by the apex court after having endured 24 and 11 years in prison, respectively. They might not know that Article 10-A of the Constitution of Pakistan guarantees them a “fair trial and due process” while Article 37(d) promises them “inexpensive and expeditious justice”.

Another example of unusual delays and injustice is manifested by the fact that, according to a rough figure, currently, more than two-thirds of the jail inmates comprise under-trial prisoners and might not be convicted at the conclusion of their trials. Such inmates can be released on bail and speedy trials need to be conducted in order to provide them expeditious justice.

Delay in the dispensation of justice by courts not only erodes people’s trust and confidence in the administration of justice, but also hampers the socio-economic development of society. It serves as a disincentive to foreign investment in the economy and affects trade relations with governments and multinational companies.

Some key suggestions to address the timely and fair dispensation of justice are inter alia as follows;

Firstly, the criminal procedural law (Criminal Procedure Code) and criminal substantive law mostly known as Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) are 122 years and 160 years old, respectively while the civil procedure code is 112 years old. These laws are products of the colonial era and were enacted according to the requirements that existed a century ago. Subsequently, civil and criminal disputes became altogether different.

The previous laws provided many technicalities and allowed endless rounds of appeals, reviews and revisions; they did not fulfill the requirements of today’s era. What is needed is enacting laws according to new requirements in order to speed up the pace of pending cases.

The time periods specified in various general and special laws for different stages of civil and criminal trials should be strictly observed by the courts.

Lawyers should avoid unnecessary and frequent adjournments, so that litigants can have final decisions earlier. In a similar manner, the bar counsels and associations should abstain from strikes on trivial problems for the sake of an efficient and fair justice process.

Scarcity of judges also contributes to the delayed justice process. Few judges are deployed to adjudicate upon thousands of cases in the country. So, all current judicial vacancies need to be filled and the number of judges should be increased in district and apex courts with high case pendency.

Lastly, it would be wrong to assume that the entire blame for the backlog of cases and delays in trial is solely attributable to defects in the procedural laws/rules, non-appearance of lawyers, bar associations’ strikes or the agencies responsible for completion of investigation and submission of challans, etc.

An important factor is also slack supervision and lack of adequate monitoring on the part of superior courts. There are no organised and methodical arrangements of supervision over the subordinate courts, because of which inefficiency among the judicial officers is on the increase. Concerning performance of the judges of lower courts, the respective High Courts and District and Sessions Judges must monitor the functioning of the subordinate courts.

Regular visits of the Chief Justices, judges of the High Courts and the inspection team should be scheduled at district courts. Cases of corruption and inefficiency should be taken up promptly and appropriate punishment awarded. There should be a system of reward and incentives in respect of those judicial officers whose performance is exemplary. Such awards may be in the shape of special increment, preference in promotion or choice of posting, etc.