Follow the Senate

‘Follow the Senate’s lead’ is the message the other branches of the government must take after the Upper House decided to take on the subject of judicial reform in the country. The presence of legal and political stalwarts in the House, such as Senate Chairman Raza Rabbani and Aitzaz Ahsan, has no doubt made the Senate a body where rich debate is carried out and thorny issues are taken up. Anyone observing the Senate over the past few months would see that it has debated a number of touchy issues and acted as a check on the actions of the executive and the Lower House. On Wednesday, the Senate chairman announced that the House would take on the judicial arm of the state, by proposing a set of reforms to provide speedy and inexpensive justice to all segments of Pakistani society. The whole House was declared as a judicial reforms committee. The Senate notification already includes a list of organisations, experts and representative bodies to be invited to the discussions. A three-month time line has been set to furnish its proposals.
The proceeding will only be held when the quorum is complete, but the decision to use the entire House as the reforms committee is a powerful one. The Senate has decided to include ex-justices Tassaduq Hussain Jillani and Nasira Iqbal and a number of legal activists, including Asma Jehangir, as well as inviting all the bar associations. They are to provide their recommendations by July 15 while the public has also been asked to adhere to the same deadline. Major debates include Senator Farhatullah Babar’s call to bring intelligence agencies within the ambit of the law to solve the missing persons issue plaguing the country. Proposals include doing away with the Frontier Crimes Regulation, which has continued to survive despite multiple calls to do away with the draconian legislation. Some of the senators called for pursuing some critical areas instead of proposing a long list of reforms that would only be condemned to the dustbin of history eventually. There has also been talk of looking into police torture and making judges accountable. Pakistan inherited a colonial judicial system, which was fundamentally anti-people and built to ensure that justice is delayed more than delivered. This was made even more complex by adding Islamic provisions. The Senate has made the right gesture. We hope the government will take the final report seriously.