EDITORIAL: The legal maxim ‘justice delayed is justice denied’, unfortunately, is just so in our judicial system where over two million cases have been pending countrywide for years, if not decades.
In the Supreme Court alone at present the number of backlog cases is around 54,000, which means redress to the litigants is not available in a timely fashion.
Citing examples, a press report points out that as per the Supreme Court cause list for July 10, a three-member bench was set to hear 45 jail petitions, some of them filed in 2017, only to learn that at least 10 of the appellants had already passed away.
A month earlier, the same bench had taken up 50 petitions when it turned out that 12 of the petitioners had died.
In a particularly tragic case back in October 2016 the apex court had exonerated two brothers convicted on a murder charge, declaring that there had been miscarriage of justice. But the two innocent men had already been hanged exactly a year before.
There are at least three major reasons for such a high pendency of cases. One is repeated adjournments sought by lawyers on one pretext or another. Secondly, several positions of judges in the Supreme Court and High Courts are lying vacant.
Third and major issue consuming the justice system’s time and energy are political disputations that should be best resolved inside Parliament or settled in some other forum.
Instead, they invariably end up in superior courts. As the pendency of cases keeps rising Chief Justice Qazi Faez Isa has asked for confirmation from the Judicial Commission of Pakistan the appointment four ad hoc judges – two of the nominees have declined the offer — with a view to easing the caseload.
This is perfectly in consonance with Article 182 of the Constitution which permits such appointments “if at any time it is not possible for want of quorum of judges of the Supreme Court to hold or continue any sitting of the Court, or for any other reasons it is necessary to increase temporarily the number of judges of the Supreme Court.
“ Yet the move has drawn strong criticism from large sections of the legal fraternity as well as the main opposition party, the PTI, terming it a court-packing plan. Considering the current politically fraught environment, that reaction comes as no surprise.
However, the Pakistan Bar Council while supporting ad hoc appointments to help reduce pending cases has called for establishing a constitutional court to hear only cases involving constitutional issues – a sensible suggestion, indeed. Notably, the idea has been embraced by as many as 66 countries, including democracies such as Belgium, Germany, Greece, Italy, Indonesia, Portugal, Spain, South Africa and Turkey.
It is all the more relevant to our situation. Almost all the cases presently seizing the apex court’s attention — at the cost of ordinary litigants — are about constitutionality of actions and policies of either the Executive or that of the Election Commission of Pakistan.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2024
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