Backlog of cases increases due to shortage of public prosecutors, says CM

Assembly also passes resolution to strictly monitor all private hospitals following Nashwa’s death

KARACHI: The Sindh Assembly was informed on Monday that there was a severe shortage of public prosecutors and law officers to plead cases in various courts on behalf of the provincial government. During the question answer session of the law department, the Sindh Chief Minister (CM) Syed Murad Ali Shah informed that one prosecutor deals with around 180 cases at a time. "The number of district public prosecutors stands at 524," Shah said, in response to a question by Grand Democratic Alliance (GDA) MPA Arif Mustafa Jatoi and added that 42,351 criminal cases were pending in various courts.

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"The total population of Sindh is more than 50 million, how can these 542 law officers deal with such a huge backlog of cases?" asked Jatoi. The CM, who holds the charge of law minister, agreed and said, "The law department has written to us for the appointment of officers, but there is acute shortage of funds, so we are not considering appointing new officers at the moment." He added that since the provincial government was getting lesser funds from the Centre, therefore the aim was to cut all non-developmental expenditures and complete the ongoing development schemes. Referring to the Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP)'s remarks on this issue, the CM said, "CJP has also asked to expedite the criminal cases first, therefore the cases are now being heard on a daily basis."

Khurrum Sher Zaman of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) said that the CM should refrain from blaming the CJP and rather, the Sindh government should appoint law officers without any delay. Responding to him, the CM said, "This seems to be a political concern and I will give you response in any public gathering."

Nusrat Seher Abbasi questioned the CM why the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) government had not appointed public prosecutors in its eleven years' tenure, to which the CM replied that PPP government had appointed law officers when Ayaz Soomro was minister of law from 2008 to 2013 and around 64 more officers were recently inducted.

The opposition leader, Firdous Shamim Naqvi, added that since there were lots of issues confronted by the province, there was a need to devise a joint strategy to resolve the matter. The CM, agreeing with him, said, "This should be started from Islamabad first. PTI government has slashed Sindh's share from the divisible pool. Lawmakers of the party should mount pressure on its government to release funds. We were supposed to get Rs655 billion, but have only gotten Rs402b so far." Shah added that he had written to the newly-appointed finance minister to release the due share of Sindh. "Hafeez Shaikh has been finance minister in our tenure. He has a better understanding of Sindh's issues. We hope he will consider our plea and release funds without any delay," he concluded.

Resolution against private hospitals

Following the death of nine-month-old Nashwa, the Sindh Assembly passed a resolution on Monday, demanding the Sindh Health Care Commission to strictly monitor all private hospitals across the province to ensure that their licences and registrations are valid and in case of such negligence they be suspended and heavily penalised.

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The resolution moved by PTI MPA Dr Seema Zia reads:" This house also wants to ensure the effectiveness of Sindh Health Care Commission to monitor all hospitals, doctors and paramedical staff for their licencing and registration and strict action should be taken against those who are found negligent." Subsequently, the speaker adjourned the session till today (Tuesday) when the pre-budget discussion will be initiated. 

Published in The Express Tribune, April 23^rd, 2019.