Legal wasteland: Speedy, inexpensive justice remains a distant dream

Backlogged system continues to protect powerful rather than putting laws into action

ISLAMABAD: This year, like those before, did not bring any revolutionary change in the judicial system. The delivery of speedy and inexpensive justice to the public remains a distant dream, and the perennial twin-problems of ‘backlog’ and ‘delays’ in the administration of justice still persists.

The most important cases courts in the capital dealt with this year included those of Mumtaz Qadri, Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, former presidents Pervez Musharraf and Asif Ali Zardari, former premiers Yousuf Raza Gilani and Raja Pervaiz Ashraf, Imran Khan, model Ayyan Ali, cleric Maulana Abdul Aziz, Shafqat Hussain and Imran Farooq.



In the treason case pending against Musharraf, the Islamabad High Court (IHC) nullified a special court’s order of November 21, 2014, and ordered a reinvestigation. Aside from charges of treason, Musharraf also stands trial in the murder of Lal Masjid’s cleric Abdul Rasheed, as well as the judges’ detention case. Throughout the year, the former general’s counsels continued to seek exemptions on medical and security grounds, and the cases linger on.

In Qadri’s case, the IHC had upheld his death sentence for killing former Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer, but struck out the terrorism conviction against the former member of Taseer’s personal guard. The Supreme Court however, declared the IHC’s decision of annulling the death sentence under the Anti-Terrorism Act null and void.

Lakhvi, the alleged mastermind of the 2008 Mumbai terror attack, walked free after spending six years in jail. The prosecution failed to convince the courts to reject his bail plea. In addition, the IHC ordered for the implementation in three months of a judicial commission’s recommendations in the Bhoja Air crash case, in which 127 passengers and crew lost their lives.

The IHC got its first Islamabad-based judge since its establishment in 2011.

In June, the IHC’s Justice Athar Minallah caught a fake court order with his name and bogus signature, proving that while justice may be blind, judges are not. In August, Dr Shahnaz Riaz, a top official at the Federal Directorate Education, was briefly arrested from a courtroom for contemptuous attitude and using ‘inappropriate language’.



Finally, the year ended with an address to the bench and bar of the IHC by Jamat-ud-Dawa’s Prof Hafiz Abdul Rehman Makki, during a Mehfil-e-Milad organised by the district and high court bar associations on IHC grounds.

While one cannot deny the occasional success, the judicial system still seems a ‘legal wasteland.’ The judicial system’s focus seems more on protecting the powerful and influential, rather than putting laws into action keeping the weakest citizens in mind.

It was observed throughout the year that courts frequently summoned and reprimanded police officials for defective investigations in various cases, but to no avail. Further, it is still unclear why dozens of cases are fixed before a court when it is humanly impossible for a judge to deal with them all in a single day. Perhaps it is time to adopt a new approach; otherwise adjournments will continue to delay justice in 2016.

There are currently 1.7 million cases pending before various courts in the country.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 1^st, 2016.