Judges, lawyers stress speedy justice

LAHORE
Judges and lawyers on Saturday stressed the need to provide speedy justice to the masses.
Bar representatives put different demands to Lahore High Court Chief Justice Manzoor Ahmed Malik while the chief justice also raised some issues for quick disposal of cases. They were speaking at a conference, “Effective Role of Punjab Bar Council for Access to Justice,” organised by the Punjab Bar Council.
PbBC Vice Chairman Farah Ijaz Baig welcoming the guests stressed the need to consider every litigant equal by courts. She said the bar had formed the Legal Aid Committee, Jails Reforms Committee and Human Rights Committee to provide assistance to the masses in access to justice.
Addressing the participants, Justice (r) Nasira Javed Iqbal said the role of reconciliation councils was effective but for the last 8 years there have been no local bodies and resultantly the reconciliation councils also had no existence. She said RCs were very essential for providing justice to women.
She added that Justice (r) Nasir Aslam Zahid had tried for quick disposal of jail appeals after visiting jails but lawyers of Karachi started taking out protests accusing him of minimising their practice opportunities by providing free legal service to the inmates. She said because of lawyers’ behaviour in courts, military courts had come into existence. She said bars should make legal aid committees functional for free legal service to deserving people.
She pointed out that in famous lawyer chambers, seniors did not pay attention to new lawyers. She alleged that seniors used juniors in preparing cases but did not pay them. She demanded the PbBC ensure functioning of law colleges on merit. “There should be a topic on law at graduation level,” she suggested. She said everyone talked about elimination of touts from courts and bars should provide an alternative if they wanted to do it. She said only touts briefed properly to litigants but lawyers did not bother to talk to litigants. She said the Right to Information Act should be implemented in letter and spirit and whistleblowers must be protected.
Senior Advocate Hamid Khan demanded the bar eliminate all bogus law colleges which were preparing lawyers who were creating hurdle to speedy justice. He said senior lawyers should establish law firms and accommodate new lawyers for their training.
He demanded the LHC chief justice set up a case management system to ensure fixation of cases before judges in accordance with their expertise in specific fields. “For the purpose, case managers should be appointed,” he added. Lahore High Court Bar Association President Pir Masood Chishti said the real purpose of the bar was to struggle for the provision of justice to the masses. He said only judges and lawyers were considered critical parts of the justice system, ignoring litigants. He said the LHC had given an assurance to the LHC that it would not announce a strike.
A representative of the PbBC also announced that they had also decided not to go on strike in their five-year tenure.
Justice (r) Fakharunisa Khokhar said Pakistan is a poor country and a poor man has to sell ornaments of his wife or some of his belongings to reach court for justice. She asked the CJ to advise judges to listen to lawyers of the poor with patience.
As the chief guest, LHC CJ Manzoor Ahmed Malik said the conference was on the role of Punjab Bar Council for access to justice but everyone was making demands to him. He said representatives of lawyers, judges, police, jail authorities and prosecution were present in the conference but no one was representing litigants.
He said Pakistan had a good set-up laws but the question was how to implement them? He said it was the responsibility of elected representatives of lawyers to give suggestions in the regard.
He said the bar also should take steps to educate new lawyers about appearance in courts, in preparing cases and pleading their cases. He said lawyers and judges should respect each other. He said 90 percent lawyers were professionals and knew their decorum but three percent of them created problems. “Bars should control them,” he suggested. By making reforms in the case management system and devising some other policies, he was sure that by July 3, there would be no pending case from 2007.