Daily Times

Sir: The fate of litigants and justice in the lower courts is worth describing. To begin with, in every court, all litigants of which there are hundreds (per court) are given the same appointment time (8 am). This is truly archaic. It is good both for judges and litigants that a working day is divided into three sessions and litigants asked to report in one of the three slots. The sudden absence, short leave or even a call from a sessions or senior civil judge is enough to disturb or obliterate the adjudicating session of any one day completely and no apology or accommodation is made in the next day’s work to the litigant who might have travelled from far flung areas. As the use of a computer software-based appointment system is not in vogue, it is not uncommon for the high court appearance of a lawyer to coincide with his appearance in a lower civil court. Consequently, both the judge and the litigant have to wait while rescheduling occurs. Even for hearing of statutes, which have a mandatory time limit to make decisions, like the Rent Restriction Ordinance or Illegal Dispossession Act, there is no dearth of cases that take three times the time, and there is no penalty on the judge who chooses to delay, which is unconstitutional. In fact, directions are given from above to complete the case by announcing some new date, thus approving an unconstitutional act. Courts, especially the lower courts have no fulltime stenographers/typists and so in final judgments, it is not uncommon for litigants to find statements attributed to them that were never made. Courts do not have solid independent teams to make an inquiry, which is essential as sometimes the architecture of a disputed property is important to the case.

It is not possible now, even after years of strict vigilance of the chief justices of various courts, to obtain any court paper or even schedule an emergency case in a higher court without some extra fee or influence, mostly of an illegal nature. Contempt of an order of court or ridiculing is common as there is a basic flaw in the constitution that there is no executive power of the judiciary. Hence the judiciary cannot get any order implemented except via the executive. Judicial education and the law department also need investment. Take the example of the Islamabad civil courts. There is no provision or a proper place for lawyers’ offices. Lawyers have set up offices illegally on land worth billions of rupees in F-8 Markaz. Elsewhere in Punjab, there are frequent incidents of judges being thrashed by lawyers’ groups. The problems that I have pointed out are just the tip of the iceberg. It is high time that the rot destroying the lower judiciary was stopped. An open debate with the citizens and readers is hereby suggested if they claim that things are improving in the lower judiciary, which are in fact deteriorating.

M SHAIKH

Islamabad