Lawyers’ bodies demand urgent reforms to improve City Courts

The legal fraternity on Friday demanded of the Sindh government to immediately allocate Rs2 billion funds for the district judiciary in Karachi to uplift its present infrastructure.

Addressing a press conference, Pakistan Bar Council member Akhtar Hussain, Sindh High Court Bar Association President Sarfarz Metlo, senior lawyer Zia Ahmed Awan and others said that the city courts infrastructure has deteriorated and requires immediate improvements in light of district and sessions judges’ reports submitted to the court.

They said the centralized judicial complex for Karachi is the need of the hour, keeping in view the increasing population and administrative issues. They also highlighted issues being faced by lawyers and litigants with regard to security, lack of proper court rooms for judges, encroachments, unsuitable family courts environment for the children, poor sanitation which severely hinder access to justice.

They said lawyers, judicial officers and litigants were acing extreme hardships due to lack of proper infrastructure in the city courts, where 36,000 civil nature cases were also transferred from high court after amendments to the law with regard to pecuniary jurisdiction of the city courts.

They demanded of the Sindh government to increase the budget for the district judiciary of Karachi in the present fiscal year so that infrastructure of the district courts could be improved. They also demanded appointments of judicial officers so that pending civil and criminal nature cases could be decided without any delay.