Senators show keenness on proposals for speedy justice

ISLAMABAD: A number of senators evinced keen interest on suggestions put forth in a meeting of legal experts panel that also included ex-Senator S M Zafar, who proposed, inter alia, doing away with options of ‘intra-court appeal and revision’ for provision of speedy justice to public.
The panel met here at the Senate Hall with Senate Chairman, Mian Raza Rabbani in the chair. Besides S M Zafar, former secretary law and justice and human rights and ex-magistrate Abdul Malik Ghauri, and Secretary Law and Justice Commission of Pakistan (LJCP) Muhammad Sarwar shared their ideas with the forum for ensuring speedy and inexpensive justice to people.
Speaking on the occasion, Zafar said that keeping in view the dictum ‘justice delayed is justice denied’, all countries over the years, made all possible efforts to improve their judicial systems and succeeded in doing so to a great extent. He warned that if the judicial system in Pakistan was not reformed, it would be doomed along with democracy. “Democracy and judiciary go hand in hand,” he remarked.
He pointed out since 1881, some 61 commissions were formed to address this issue of ‘justice delayed is justice denied’ and similar exercise was carried out in Pakistan as well. He advised the committee to also look into chapter 14 of the commission, of which Hamoodur Rehman too was a member that presented its report in 1970.
The veteran constitutional expert did not agree with some of the senators that the judicial system had been destroyed, saying the system was very much there but was outdated and could be improved. He traced two major reasons for this: first, inefficiency, which he called apathy and weakness and second, corruption that dubbed as cancer.
Zafar strongly recommended that there should be no sitting judges in the Judicial Commission, as they were already dealing with suo moto cases and in the past also issued political statements. He also said that the Judicial Academy should not confine its role to presenting of shields and bouquets to judges, rather it should provide guidance and expertise.
In the United Kingdom and elsewhere, he pointed out, judges benefited from their judicial academies, whereas in Pakistan, judges did not get time to study further and attend conferences abroad to enrich their expertise. “Judges think, they have learnt enough and their only job is to issue judgements and decide cases,” he noted.
Zafar emphasised how crucial it was to delete the provision of revision, being the mother of delays, which impeded progress on the real case. He noted that the commission in 1970 had proposed provision of library to each civil judge, and today what was needed the facility of IT library to all judges.
During his discourse, he also laid emphasis on judges to be proactive in deciding whether or not a case would move forward. The former senator strongly recommended putting in place an alternative dispute resolution (ADR) mechanism, particularly to deal with financial cases, which would automatically attract foreign investors to Pakistan besides lessening burden on courts. He called for revision of the law of arbitration 1940.
He said even today, arbitration courts or ‘panchaiyats’ existed in India and from 1999 onwards, 967,000 cases had been decided. Referring to China, he said that there was dictum that each Chinese must not go to courts, as alternative dispute resolution system was quite effective and delivering results there.
He added that that intra court appeal (ICA) provision should be done away with and an appeal should be filed in the Supreme Court.
Zafar called for a judicial restraint and proposed a constitutional amendment by the parliament, saying this would bring down suo moto notices number, say, from 100 to 10-15 cases. He also proposed doing away with special appeal, being a practice of medieval era.
PML-Q’s Mushahid Hussain Sayed put a question to Zafar as to how the issue of conflict of interests of by the judges could be addressed and pointed out the biggest case of this nature was of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Asghar Khan case. He added that memo scandal could also be quoted here. He also wanted to know opinion of the jurist about setting up constitutional court.
Replying to Mushahid, Zafar said that conflict of interests and bias indeed influenced minds and suggested that in such a case a judge should voluntarily withdraw from a case hearing. He supported public debate on establishment of a constitutional court.
Taking part in the discussion on speedy and inexpensive justice, PPP Senator Farhatullah Babar said that the foremost concern of the House should be to provide some avenue of justice to the most vulnerable section of the society, namely the missing persons and those, who had disappeared without a trace, allegedly at the hands of agencies.
“The victims of enforced disappearances and their families are yearning for justice. Howsoever expensive this called for legislation to bring state agencies under the ambit of the law and be held accountable. Unfortunately there is no avenue for justice is available to them and the talk of inexpensive and speedy justice to them was meaningless,” he noted.
Similarly, he said that in suo moto cases, the apex court tended to become a trial court and noted that excessive use of suo moto closed an important avenue of justice namely the right to appeal.
Babar also questioned the present mode of appointment of judges, saying that the present system revolved round appointment of judges by judges to the exclusion of the president, the prime minister and practically the parliamentary committee on the appointment of judges had all powers of appointment of judges.
“The dispersal of power to appoint judges is necessary so that judges with diverse views and jurisprudential acumen adorned the bench rather than packing the courts in a manner that made the institution a monolithic body and driven by a command structure,” he said.
In his presentation, LJCP Secretary Muhammad Sarwar said a qualitative shift was needed from piecemeal law reforms to address the ‘systemic’ and structural issues, hindering provision of speedy and inexpensive justice, which the Senate may be the best place to lead.He said that justice organisations should review their own laws and rules and submit their reports to relevant parliamentary bodies and other oversight bodies.
He proposed that the ombudsman should conduct assessments to check the quality of administration and notify standards for good administration and transparency and publish it for the benefit of common man.
Former magistrate Abdul Malik Ghauri said that the system of check and balance had given rights to citizens. He said in the United States, jury system was working brilliantly and a jury would not disperse until a case was decided in 24 hours or even more. He called for starting such jury as a pilot project in each province to gauge its effectiveness. He said the jury system system was packed up from Pakistan in 1974, which needed to be revived.
He said because of an efficient judicial and jury system, conviction rate in the The legal expert noted that there were 47 regional courts workings across world but there was no proposal to set up such courts in the ambit of Saarc that would help settle and stem many issues and disputes.
Senator Mushahid said that recently former US president Bush and Joe Biden performed jury duties. Others who spoke included, Dr. Jehan Zeb Jamaldeni of BNP, Sassui Palejo, Karim Khawaja, Taj Haider and Sherry Rehman of PPP.On Thursday former top police officers Shoaib Suddle, Afzal Shigri and senior right activist Dr Majida Rizvi will give expert opinion in the public hearing for the committee.