Justice delayed: Election work affects court hearings

Judges could not hear many cases due to election duty.

LAHORE:

The rate of disposal of cases in the subordinate courts fell drastically in April and May due to the elections, The Express Tribune has learnt.

According to court records, 1,399 cases were decided in March, 752 in April and 198 in the first 15 days of May.

The courts passed judgment in more than 1,200 ‘oldest’ cases (filed up to 2008) from January to March. As many as 110 criminal and 1,289 civil cases out of 730 criminal and 11,256 civil cases were decided in March. However, only 50 criminal cases and 702 civil cases were decided in April.

As many as 13 additional district and sessions judges hearing murder trials were appointed returning officers. As many as 13 civil judges were part of the monitoring cells. After the Election Commission issued a schedule for the polls on March 22, the judges had to assume election related duties from March 23.



As many as 935 criminal and 1,591 civil cases in the ‘old’ cases category (those filed between January 2009 and February 2011) were decided in March out of a backlog of 9,804 criminal and 16,579 civil cases. As many as 732 criminal and 1,251 civil cases were decided in April.

District and Sessions Judge Nazir Ahmad Gajana told The Express Tribune that the election process had caused the rate of disposal to drop by more than 60 per cent, especially the cases requiring expeditious hearing under the National Judicial Policy.

He said it was not possible for judges to hear the cases as well as perform the election duties, so they were told therefore to focus on the election process. He said many lawyers were also involved in the election process in one way or another. They would quite often not appear in courts because of election activities, he said. Judge Gajana was optimistic that the pace would pick up now that the elections were over.

Several lawyers objected to the observation that lawyers had not appeared in courts. Advocate Muhammad Asif said, “Why would lawyers appear before a court when the judges were busy with election work, visiting their constituencies.”

Most court staffers said they had to fix new dates in most cases due to the non-availability of judges. Some cases were in their final stages but were not decided because of the elections, they said.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 7^th, 2013.