‘Proactive role needed to resolve family cases’

Training programme for family court judges initiated at Federal Judicial Academy.

ISLAMABAD: Justice Asif Saeed Khosa has underlined the need for effectively handling family cases and called for extensive training of family court judges. Justice Khosa stated this while addressing the opening ceremony of a training programme for family court judges at the Federal Judicial Academy (FJA) here on Monday.

FJA Director General Parvaiz Ali Chawla said that a variety of subjects have been incorporated in the academy’s syllabus to form well-rounded judges. Family courts judges from all over the country participated in the training.

Justice Khosa said the purpose of family courts is to assist effective disposal of cases relating to family matters such as marriage, divorce, alimony and child custody. Dealing with such matters is entirely different from criminal and civil issues and judges should take into account human and psychological dimensions. “Judges might have to deal with matters where someone’s heart is broken,” Khosa said. He said it requires wisdom and knowledge, among other things, to appropriately deal with such matters and they should be resolved is through reconciliation and mutual settlement, wherever deemed feasible. “Breakdown of families can victimise children in many ways and judges should strive to save families by arranging conciliation among parties,” he added.

Khosa stressed that it is essential for family court judges to be properly trained so as to ensure effective management and speedy disposal of cases. Khosa said that family cases should not remain pending and the system efficiency should be improved through effective use of available human resource.

“It takes proactive attitudes in lawyers and judges to bring children’s problems to light and to find their solutions,” he added.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 8^th, 2011.