The Pakistani Spectator

Judicial system works in any society to safeguard the interests of the oppressed or victims and keeps the unruly elements of society in check. In order for judiciary to carry on its duties without any interference it requires independence from executive, but unfortunately it has seldom been the case in Pakistan.

While I am not at all questioning the motives of any government in establishing Special Courts for speedy trials of terrorism or corruption related cases.
But at the same time something doesn’t feel right. I start to think why is this whole judicial system there and why not work with this system, overhaul and then fine tune it to speed up entire justice system.

Establishing special courts is admitting in first place that our judicial system is not up to the standard hence special courts. Injustice or slow delivery of justice contributes to frustration in society and some people may use it as an excuse like that in Swat and to some extent in Tribal areas to resolve to extremism or exploit the lack or slow delivery of justice to realise their ulterior motives. Musharraf established special courts to try accountability and corruption cases exclusively. The NAB was created in part to deal with as much as $4 billion (PKR 208 billion) estimated to be owed to the country’s banks (all of which were state-owned at the time; several have since been privatized) by debtors, primarily from among the wealthy elite.

The Musharraf Government stated that it would not target genuine business failures or small defaulters and does not appear to have done so. Musharraf also used it to blackmail and break the politicians needed for his long term goal of ruling this country. Similarly special courts for terrorism were used for political purposes. If resources utilized to establish the special courts were added to the already over worked judicial system perhaps it would have improved the overall efficiency of the system albeit at a slower rate.

There is an anti corruption unit in every government but unfortunately police officers who are corrupt to the core, are posted to the anti-corruption units. Asking the cat to guard the milk is not a good idea to start with. The resources allocated to the NAB can be diverted to the anti-corruption unit. But first thing first honest officers (if we can find any but I am sure there are many) should be appointed to the police force in general and anti corruption unit in particular. They should be the highest paid so as to reduce any chance of corruption and taking the excuse away from them for being paid inadequately. Anti corruption should be made a career oriented department and not merely a place to dump the corrupt offices. That’s what OSD is for (although I admit it serves mostly to sideline officers fallen out of favour or politically motivated dumping).

Current Chief Justice have devised a National Judicial Policy. Judges have been directed to take on no more than 150 criminal or 250 civil cases at a time. Civil cases are to be decided within four months, while those arrested and charged with a crime have the right to a bail hearing in less than a week. Criminal trials are supposed to be done in six months. But this in no way should be considered to have fixed the problem. This should be considered as a start. In my opinion the professional lawyers associations should work to confiscate licenses of those lawyers who deliberately try to prolong the trials for money. Appointment of judges to courts should be based on seniority and not politically motivated. This will help them work independently of any pressures or return any favours and will help to overall improvement in the system.