Subordinate judiciary in dire need of reforms, says SHC CJ Maqbool Baqar

Karachi
Sindh High Court Chief Justice Maqbool Baqar said on Monday the situation in the subordinate judiciary was woeful in many respects and in urgent need of reforms.
Addressing a full court reference on eve of his elevation as judge of the Supreme Court on Monday, he said the problems were systematic and it would take time to root them and resolve them.
However, he said that problems within the judicial system, if tacked resolutely, were neither insurmountable nor such that timeframe for solving them was essentially beyond reach.
Justice Baqar, who had refused to take oath under the former military ruler Pervez Musharaf’s Provisional Constitutional Order in November 2007, said that after his elevation as a judge of Sindh High Court in 2002 he had no idea of the momentous and tumultuous events which lay ahead.
“An old Chinese curse says that ‘May you live in interesting times’ and certainly since November 3, 2007, the times have been interesting indeed,” he said, referring to the challenges faced by the judiciary after 2007.
Justice Baqar said the resolve demonstrated by overwhelming majority of judges and lawyers had given new meaning to the age-old cliché that the bench and the bar were the two wheel of the chariot of justice.
Praising the efforts of lawyers all over the country who were struggling for the restoration and independence of judiciary, he said he would like to use the occasion to remember those events and fervently pray that those times never returned.
“I am mindful that it has been said that history repeats itself. First as a tragedy and then as a farce. But we want neither. Let that time and those events prove truly to be sui generis,” he said.
Justice Baqar urged the bar councils and associations to impart proper training and guidance to junior lawyers. He also paid homage to the brave officials who had sacrificed their lives or had been injured in line of duty when his convoy had been attacked on June 23, 2013.
The newly-appointed chief justice of Sindh High Court, Faisal Arab, said while speaking to the audience that the events of November 2007 were etched in pages of history.
However, he said, one good thing that had come out of adversity was that the judiciary had become more independent. “But mere independence is not sufficient. The competence and efficiency of judges in dispensation of the justice is more significant than independence of the judiciary,” he said. “The justice delivery system needed reformative changes.”
He called on the legal fraternity to demonstrate the same love for the institution of the judiciary demonstrated by lawyers and the civil society during the 2007 movement. Arab said the time had come to make changes in our justice delivery system so the society may feel that efforts are being made to make dispensation of justice efficient and effective.
Others speakers at the reference included Sindh Bar Council vice chairman Zia-ul-Hasan Lanjar, Sindh High Court Bar Association president Abid S Zuberi and Karachi Bar Association president Naeem Qureshi.