Who’s looking after the house and the backyard?

District courts suffer neglect as superior judiciary eyes greater publicity

A recent project pulled me out to the district courts in Punjab. The on-ground realities are slightly perplexing.

There are about 1.8 million cases pending in the courts of Punjab. Cases take about 8-10 years to be heard (on average) and litigants often pass away or the issue at hand expires in this time period. The district courts are understaffed and district judges do not receive any meaningful support or feedback from the high court on measures they implement. Each district in Punjab, for instance, is under the supervision of an “inspection judge” situated in the high court. Such a judge is expected to monitor and report on the performance of the district to address any gaps and to facilitate local progress. However, many districts have not heard from their inspection judges in over a year. There is no evidence that the administrative wing of the high court is issuing instructions to monitor and check on the districts either.



Instead, many frivolous judicial interventions and large numbers of powerful (and often fake) lawyers attempt to tackle the problems. To relieve the pressure on the courts in Punjab, a senior judge of the Supreme Court, Justice Khosa, proposed the introduction of “model courts” last year. These courts were expected to implement a continuous trial system and were to have frequent case hearings to expedite case disposals. This intervention was introduced without any protocols or guidelines. Visits to these courts reveal that nothing different is happening within them. In another effort to expedite cases, the high court also introduced a set of specialised courts. These included specific courts for murder, narcotics, NADRA and other cases per category. Once again, without any monitoring or guidelines.

More courts, more problems. The existing problems of delays, incompetency, degradation of the powerful local bars have simply been transferred to greater numbers of courts. There are about 700 to 800 fake lawyers in Kasur and about 30% of the cases filed are by the lawyers themselves. There is a weekly strike in Kasur and courts are forced to shut down. Houses of lawyers and other key parties are being fired at to intimidate them (Possible cause for suo motu?) Judges have revealed that they are just too afraid to take strong stances and force frequent trials as the high court (and above) does not back them up.

The above illustrates that there are indeed grave problems within the judicial system in Pakistan. There are also issues with politics, business and governance such as: the way provincial governments allot funds, funeral processions travelling through flooded streets, local governments prioritising greater funds on infrastructure than on healthcare and education, mobile phone operators deducting too much money from customers’ balance and encroachments on public playgrounds. However, the latter must be marked for what they are: political, business and governance issues. They are not issues that requisite immediate judicial intervention. This is especially so when the judiciary is not being able to tackle its existing huge burden of cases. In this vein, Article V of the Judge’s Code of Conduct states:

“Functioning as he does in full view of the public, a Judge gets thereby all the publicity that is good for him. He should not seek more. In particular, he should not engage in any public controversy, least of all on a political question, notwithstanding that it involves a question of law.”

With a crushing burden of cases in the district and high courts, the above-listed 'surplus' cases that borderline on or address political issues should not be the judiciary’s first concern. Access to justice is as equal a fundamental right as is access to health or education. The former must thus not be compromised at the expense of the latter. What is of utmost relevance to the judiciary are the problems in its own backyard.



It is thus imperative for the superior judiciary to find a way to unclog the current (millions of) cases stuck in the pipeline before they take up new and hot political issues of their own motion. Perhaps, the Supreme Court can invest time in creating an ID card system for court officials to keep out fake lawyers from courts, in rejuvenating the data software systems in the Lahore High Court to increase transparency and data management and also to focus on understanding the causes of delays in the courts. The Lahore High Court has invested in a software worth several tens of crores. Yet, no one knows why it is not being used. Perhaps judges can also frequent district and high courts more so than hospitals.

Young children are running around unsupervised in the backyard while the weeds in the yard are growing out of control. Because the parents are away from home so often—they might just grow all over the house.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 23^rd, 2018.

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