Enforced disappearances ‘intolerable’: NJPMC

ISLAMABAD: The National Judicial Policy Making Committee (NJPMC) Friday took a serious notice of enforced disappearances and unanimously resolved that the judiciary would not compromise on its constitutional duty to safeguard the fundamental rights.

The committee met at the Supreme Court under the chairmanship of Chief Justice of Pakistan Yahya Khan Afridi.

Chief justices of all the High Courts and additional attorney general for Pakistan attended the meeting on special invitation.

The committee deliberated on key policy issues and adopted several significant measures to improve judicial performance, technology integration in judicial processes and citizen-centric justice delivery.

The committee took a serious notice of enforced disappearances and unanimously resolved that the judiciary would not compromise on its constitutional duty to safeguard fundamental rights

In this respect, a dedicated committee was constituted to formulate an institutional response, after taking into consideration concerns of the executive, to be communicated through the attorney general for Pakistan.

The committee also decided to protect judicial officers from external influence and asked the High Courts to establish structured mechanisms for reporting and redressing such instances within a stipulated timeframe.

Similarly, to improve the commercial dispute resolution landscape, the NJPMC approved the establishment of Commercial Litigation Corridor, with specialized courts and benches.

In line with its commitment to expeditious justice, the committee endorsed the piloting of a Double-Docket Court Regime in select districts on need basis with optional participation.

The framework for Model Criminal Trial Courts was also approved to address long-pending criminal cases through time-bound trials and optimized judicial resources.

In a major step toward strengthening Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR), the committee approved the launch of a court-annexed mediation regime as a pilot project. This includes the establishment of district mediation facilities, family court mediation centers and standardized SOPs for operational purposes.

To ensure consistency and excellence in the district judiciary, the NJPMC constituted a committee headed by Justice (retd) Rehmat Hussain Jafferi, former judge Supreme Court of Pakistan, comprising chief justice High Court of Balochistan, registrars of High Courts and DG Federal Judicial Academy to recommend key performance indicators aligned with international benchmarks, standardized recruitment and training mechanisms, address disparities in service conditions and propose a framework for the District Judiciary Policy Forum as well as overseas exposure opportunities for judges.

The committee also approved the development of a Professional Excellence Index for talent hunt of lawyers for induction in judiciary and asked the High Courts to finalize their models within 30 days.

On the request of the additional attorney general for Pakistan, the committee decided that all constitutional petitions pertaining to tax and financial matters shall be heard and decided by the division benches of the High Courts instead of single bench.