Justice beyond the conventional contours

Behind every case is a human story: a family worried about its home, a widow protecting her rights, a worker seeking what is due, or simply someone who does not know where to turn. The courthouse doors may be open, yet justice can remain beyond reach when the cost of seeking it is more than a person can bear. For someone already struggling to make ends meet, the question is not always whether the law provides a remedy, but whether they can realistically reach it.

For such people, litigation is not merely a legal process. A court visit may mean losing a day's income. A lawyer's fee may compete with food, school fees or medicines. Even knowing where to go and how to begin can become a barrier. A right guaranteed by law has limited meaning if a person lacks the means to claim it. This is where justice must move beyond the conventional contours of courts and courtrooms.

Article 37(d) of the Constitution places upon the State the responsibility to ensure inexpensive and expeditious justice. Behind this commitment lies a basic principle of the social contract: citizens look to the State not merely to make laws, but to protect rights and provide remedies when those rights are violated. Justice cannot be truly inclusive if the ability to seek it depends upon the ability to pay.

Recent judicial initiatives seek to address this divide. The National Judicial Policy Making Committee announced an initiative under which financially distressed litigants may receive legal representation at State expense across the judicial hierarchy, from Magistrate Courts to the Supreme Court. The Law and Justice Commission of Pakistan is also working towards a broader framework for free legal aid and advice. The principle behind these efforts is simple: poverty should not determine whether a person is heard before a court.

But access to justice begins even before a lawyer enters the courtroom. Someone unfamiliar with the courts may not know what remedy is available or where to seek help. To those familiar with the system, these may seem ordinary questions. For someone poor, vulnerable or distressed, they can become walls between a right and its remedy.

The Supreme Court's Call Centre can help bridge this gap. Experienced legal professionals, including a retired judge and a legal consultant, have been engaged to provide legal advice over the telephone or through a visit to the Centre. For someone unable to afford even an initial consultation, this means having somewhere to turn, someone who will listen, understand the problem and guide them towards the appropriate legal forum.

The Bar forms another important pillar of this approach. It is being taken on board to provide free legal representation to deserving litigants who cannot afford a lawyer. For someone with a genuine grievance but without the means to pursue it, such representation can make the difference between giving up and having a real opportunity to seek justice.

Together, these measures create a more humane pathway to justice: guidance at the first point of contact and, where appropriate, free legal representation. Instead of expecting citizens to understand every door of the justice system before asking for help, the system begins helping them find the right one. That is justice beyond conventional contours.

Legal aid, public facilitation, telephone-based guidance and free representation serve a common purpose: removing barriers that can leave a person with a legal right but no practical way to claim it. This also gives practical meaning to Sustainable Development Goal 16: equal access to justice and strong, inclusive institutions, grounded in the wider promise that no one should be left behind because of poverty, distance or lack of legal knowledge.

The real test will be implementation. Free legal assistance requires transparent eligibility criteria, competent lawyers, clear referral mechanisms and measurable standards. The quality of representation matters as much as its availability. Justice for a poor person should never become poorer justice.

Ultimately, access to justice cannot be measured only by courthouses, judges or cases decided. Its truest measure lies in the experience of the person seeking help at a moment of need: Was that person heard? Was dignity preserved? Or did inability to pay stand between a citizen and a lawful remedy?

A courthouse may have its doors open, but justice becomes truly accessible only when poverty and lack of legal knowledge no longer decide who can walk through them. Perhaps that is the deeper meaning of justice beyond conventional contours: a system that listens when people feel unheard, helps them find the right door when they feel lost, and brings justice within reach when it once seemed beyond them. For someone who thought there was nowhere to turn, that journey may begin with something as simple as a call.