Performance of judicial officers to be evaluated, says LHC CJ

‘Weaknesses in system can only be
improved through learning, training’

LAHORE: The Lahore High Court Chief Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah has said that judicial officers’ performance would be evaluated by a comprehensive monitoring and evaluation mechanism and its reports would become part of their service record which shall be taken into account in the matter of promotions and transfers.

The CJ said that no institution could progress without training of its human resource. He was addressing an award distribution ceremony of the Training of Trainers Programme at the Punjab Judicial Academy (PJA), Lahore. The ceremony was also attended by Sardar Tahir Sabir, officiating registrar of LHC, Uzma Chughtai, PJA Director General, Dr Livingston Armytage, Director, Centre for Judicial Studies, Australia and John Lipton, Team Leader, European Union’s Punjab Access to Justice Project.

Enlightening the participants about the future vision of PJA, the CJ said that before posting in the field, every new judicial officer shall undergo a six months extensive pre-service training programme based on knowledge, skill and attitude approach at PJA to ensure that the rights of public at large are adjudicated upon by professional, competent and expert judicial officers.

The CJ also apprised the participants that by means of an all-encompassing in-service training programme formally called the General Training Programme, set to commence in October this year, every judicial officer in the District Judiciary and a major chunk of staff of the district judiciary shall undergo training the next year.

He said that by deploying a video link technology, PJA would conduct weekly lectures for whole of the District Judiciary in Punjab. He said the judicial officers who would attend the training programmes shall be evaluated by a comprehensive monitoring and evaluation mechanism and its reports would become part of their service record which shall be taken into account in the matter of promotions and transfers.

He also explained that within a span of a year PJA would publish bench books relating to law thereby enabling the judicial officers to adjudicate upon the rights of people with more confidence.

The CJ said that the weaknesses present in a system could only be improved through learning and training. He stressed that judiciary was a performance-based institution and henceforth it would run on the basis of progressive performance. He appreciated the efforts of PJA and said that PJA had a future in redefining justice delivery system of the province. He said that PJA was a nourishing ground for future trainers and that the vacant seats of faculty members would be filled very soon as full force of the faculty was required to generate maximum output of the academy.