Justice Khosa speaks less and his judgments, actions speak more

ISLAMABAD: Record high backlog of all court cases climbs up as designated chief justice of Pakistan Asif Saeed Khosa is going to take charge of his office tomorrow (Jan 18).

The top judge who set new history by disposing of record number of cases in past five years is to face the Herculean task of clearing the highest backlog of estimated 1.9 million cases pending with some 250 courts across the country, top legal brains said.

Justice Khosa dealt with some 11,000 criminal cases in past four years which had been otherwise pending with the apex court since years. In his 20-year career as a judge, he had handled more than 5,5000 cases of constitutional, criminal, civil, service, revenue and election laws. Before joining as a judge in Lahore High Court (LHC) in 1998, he as an advocate had pleaded around 20,000 cases in different courts while 600 cases reported in various law reports of the country. As per the estimated statistics, gathered from the Law and Justice Commission, there are some 1.9 million cases pending with the lower, special and superior courts and tribunals. Among these cases 40, 871 are pending in the SC currently while this pendency was recorded with 38,539 cases last year and some 18,000 in 2013. Some 422 (389 last year) cases are pending with Federal Shariat Court, 165, 515 (147, 542 last year) cases with the LHC, 29, 624 (30,764 last year) cases with the Peshawar High Court, 6,842 (6, 030 last year) with the Balochistan High Court, 92,169 (93, 335 last year) cases with the Sindh High Court and 17,085 (16,278 last year) cases are pending in the Islamabad High Court. Around 1,458, 845 cases are pending in district judiciary and 130, 746 cases are pending in special courts/tribunals across the country. The pendency in districts of Punjab is 1,095, 542, Sindh 101, 095, KP 209,984, Balochistan 13, 969 and Islamabad 38, 291. Thus, there are around 4,100 judges (combined strength of judges of superior courts (162 judges), subordinate courts and special courts/administrative tribunals) for a population of 210 million in Pakistan. It means that there is one judge for 48, 838 persons, which is far below the international standards.

Senior lawyers, Geo News exclusively spoke to, opined that Justice Khosa’s passion is criminal justice reform. Judicial activism and accountability of all institutions (including of the judiciary) will continue but he will speak less and his judgments and actions will speak more, they opined, better regulating bench-bar relationship ahead. The issues on which Justice Khosa will exercise 184 (3) powers will be different from present CJP, they said.

“Justice Khosa is every inch a judge who speaks through his judgments. He has had an enviable career both as a lawyer and a judge. He has an incisive mind and has command over law and procedure,” observed Ashtar Ausaf, ex Attorney General for Pakistan (AGP). He is a legal analyst par excellence who will bring about reforms in the justice delivery system. He will fix the ailing and archaic justice delivery system,” he added.

Current AGP Anwar Mansoor Khan says, “Justice Khosa is a man of a few words, quiet, extremely intelligent, honest and committed.”

Ahmer Bilal Soofi, senior SC lawyer, says, “Justice Khosa is academically sound, measured and difficult to persuade - court conduct very matter of fact - superb command over criminal jurisprudence - ability to see the real facts through the file documentation.”

“CJP Khosa will need to revisit the SC’s ethos to determine if they conform to the code of conduct for judges—there are three models available to a new CJP: business-as-usual; cathartic-savior; and judicial-reform. In the first, an incumbent see nothing wrong with how things are, enjoys his days in glory without seeking more and walks into the sunset,” observed Babar Sattar in his recent article.

Advocate Faisal Siddiqi counts challenges for new CJP as saying, “Continuing with judicial activism but with an equal focus on judicial reform, his career as one of the best criminal jurists Pakistan has produced, his passion is criminal law and criminal justice reform and his policy would circle judicial activism and accountability of all institutions and moreover the issues on which he will exercise 184 (3) powers will be different from present CJP.” Another challenge, experts believe, would remain on implementation of law and justice commission reports—157 reports submitted to review laws but 90 reports could not be implemented in past five years and maximum utilisation of access to justice development funds.

Senior SC lawyer Khawaja Haris says, “The biggest challenge for new CJP is twofold: ameliorating the working conditions of subordinate judiciary, attracting and selecting the best for appointment in the subordinate judiciary by setting up a permanent recruitment body for selection through competitive examination of judges for subordinate judiciary, in the manner as the existing recruitment bodies for civil servants, inter alia including Supreme Court and high court judges appointed for three years to take exams and interviews for selection, with mandatory medical and psychological tests as well. Secondly, reform of civil and criminal laws to ensure speedy and even-handed, level playing field justice—processes by tackling the demand for setting up of high court benches at divisional levels in terms of finality by considering the unique conditions of our country. There are a host of issues for and recruitment in superior courts, rules for a more just, equitable, open/transparent, and justifiable, method of dealing with cases of judicial mis-conduct of judges of superior courts—also to restore autonomy of high courts as guaranteed by the constitution and not to bully them into submission—nor take up cases in suo motu jurisdiction or directly under 184 (3) when they should first be mooted in and decided by the high courts.”