‘Taking politics to courts paves way for martial laws’

PESHAWAR: Supreme Court (SC) judge Justice Dost Muhammad Khan has said that bringing political matters to the courts is paving the way for martial law in the country.

“Political parties should resolve their matters in parliament for the sake of a strong democratic system rather than bringing them in the courts,” Justice Dost Muhammad Khan said while speaking at a ceremony arranged by the Peshawar Bar Association in his honour here on Thursday.

Unfortunately, he said, this region (country) has been made a laboratory and new experiments are being made every day. “Separating the judiciary from the executive was not an easy task. Judiciary has made a lot of sacrifices in making itself capable of separation from the executive,” Justice Dost Muhammad Khan said.

He said that it was the judiciary’s responsibility to provide inexpensive and speedy justice to the people. “There is no flaw in the law as the flaws existed with us as we used the system in wrong ways,” he opined. He added that attempts were being made to damage the 1973 Constitution but the constitution is still in place.

About the missing persons’ cases, he said that in 2013 on the orders of the courts 2,500 missing persons were produced and 900 of them were shifted to the internment centres.

“The dignity of the judiciary remains high in the eyes of the public when it makes decisions based on justice,” he argued. He said delay in justice creates problems in the society, and sometimes the delay in civil cases lead to criminal cases of murder between the parties.

Justice Dost Muhammad said that responsibility alsorested with the lawyers’ community to respect the institutions. He urged the lawyers to challenge the court decision in the higher court when they did not get relief in an issue instead of going on a strike.

About the mobile courts project started by him when he was chief justice of the PHC, he claimed that it was an important and successful project for provision of justice at the doorstep, but unfortunately it was not continued after his elevation to the Supreme Court.

President of Peshawar Bar Association Fazal Wahid and General Secretary Ashfaq Khalil praised Justice Dost Muhammad for his services to the judiciary.

They said Justice Dost Muhammad as the chief justice of the PHC had taken notice of the centuries-old custom of Ghag and later the provincial government made the law on his directives to tackle the issue.

They recalled that the provincial government also made law against the interest-based system on the direction of Justice Dost Muhammad. PHC Chief Justice Yahya Afridi, Advocate General Abdul Latif Yousafzai and a large number of lawyers attended the ceremony.