PHC declares judicial year 2018 as ‘Performance Year’ for district judiciary

PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court (PHC) has declared the judicial year 2018 as 'Performance Year' for district judiciary. Speaking at a press conference, PHC Registrar Khwaja Wajihuddin said that the judicial year would start from September 2018. In the judicial performance year, he said that every judge would decide at least 75 cases a month.

He said the performance of a judge would be considered unsatisfactory if he did not meet the target. Khwaja Wajihuddin said that PHC Chief Justice Waqar Seth returned protocol on day first after taking the oath of office. The registrar said a comprehensive policy was being chalked out for district judiciary to enhance disposal rate of cases. Sharing the data of the cases, he said that presently 416 courts were functional in the province. He added that 180,383 cases were pending out of which 72,221 were criminal and 108,162 were civil.

He said a total number of pending cases in Peshawar was 27,910. The PHC was working on digitisation of record, office management procedure to make it more systematic, he added. To achieve quantifiable outputs of a judicial officer, Unite Policy was re-modified after being approved by the chief justice PHC. He said a notification was issued to the district judiciary for consideration on Unit Policy implementation by replacing Disposal Performance Evaluation Policy (DPEP) by September 2018.

The policy, he said, is in the initial phase, which would be piloted in all districts from September to December 2018 and its output would be assessed. "From January 2019 this will be implemented on regular basis," he added. He said PHC CJ had directed all officials to adopt austerity measures to minimise the expenditure and refused to take official protocol and security personnel.

The registrar said that a letter had been sent to judicial officers to report any person or official to the chief justice who was trying to seek favours by using influence. Moreover, two complaint boxes have opened in the high court to receive complaints and suggestions from visitors to improve the working environment. He added that people can also lodge complaints directly to the chief justice at hcj@peshawarhighcourt.gov.pk.

About extension of the judiciary to Fata, he said that PHC had completed its homework and informed the provincial government about the requirement of judicial officers, para-legal staff, infrastructure and budgetary expenditure. He added that under the new policy the judicial officers would be transferred from districts having less number of cases to the ones where a backlog of work was high.