REFORMS IN CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM
REFORMS IN CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM
Background of Criminal Justice System:
Criminal Justice System is one of the most important ingredients of any society of the world. Criminal Justice System describes the offences, punishments, procedures and ways to punish those who break laws of the society. It is the Criminal Justice System which creates deterrence in society. Without effective Criminal Justice System, a society or country cannot survive for long. In today’s modern world the Criminal Justice System comprises of three main institutions i.e. Police, Prosecution and Judiciary. In almost all countries of the world, the system consists of these three main institutions although their names may vary from country to country. Criminal Justice System in Pakistan also comprises of three basic institutions i.e. Police, Prosecution and Judiciary.
Before 2007, there were only two institutions in Criminal Justice System i.e. Police and Judiciary and there was no concept of independent Prosecution Department in Pakistan. It was only after 2007 when all Provinces established independent and Specialized Prosecution Departments. Due to its short life and other reasons, Prosecution is still not independent and fully functional in Pakistan’s Criminal Justice System.
Definition:
The criminal justice system can be defined as:
“The network of government and private agencies intended to manage accused and convicted criminals under the criminal law.”
Introduction:
The system that deals with agencies of government that are responsible for enforcing the law in the country, maintaining peace and harmony and treating criminal conduct is known as the criminal justice system. The aim of the criminal justice system is to ensure that every person who suffers an injury or loss at the hand of others is allowed to present his case and seek justice.
Criminal Justice System is the system of practices and institutions of government directed at upholding social control, deterring and mitigating crime or sanctioning those who violate laws with criminal penalties and rehabilitation efforts.
The term ‘criminal justice’ refers to an area of knowledge devoted to controlling crime through the scientific administration of police, courts and rehabilitation and correctional agencies. Is is an interdisciplinary field making use of knowledge on the basis of sociology, psychology, law public policy and other related fields.
Objectives:
The various objectives of the criminal justice system are as under:
• To punish the wrongdoers
• Prevent further occurrence of crimes in society
• Regulates the behavior and conduct of wrongdoers
• Provide relief to the victim
• Treatment of offender and their rehabilitation
• To create deterrence in the minds of people at large into any criminal activity
• Maintain law and order in society
Major terms used in Criminal Justice System:
Following are the major terms used in Criminal Justice system
• Offence
• Crime
• FIR
• Police
• Investigation
• Inquiry
• Challan
• Bail
• Prosecution
• Trial
• Evidence
• Conviction
• Acquital
• Probation
• Parole
• PPC
• CRPC
• QSO
Criminal Justice System:
Most criminal systems have 6 components which are law enforcement, defense attorneys, courts, probation and parole, each playing a key role in the criminal justice system.
• Police
• Prosecution
• Defense attorneys
• Courts
• Probation
• Parole
Pillars of Criminal Justice System:
The entire criminal justice system in Pakistan is aimed at the judicial dispensation of criminal justice. It stands on three pillars:
i. The investigation,
ii. Prosecution and
iii. Trial.
Only by the appropriate and balanced working of these pillars and within the respective domain can the effective and smooth functioning of the system be possible.
Criminal Justice Reforms:
In the last few years, criminal justice reform has been woven into the fabric of a national conversation. Reports of police brutality, racial profiling, prosecutorial misconduct, and sentencing discrepancies seem like common occurrences. Grassroots advocates to celebrities highlight these inequities and argue that many laws disproportionately affect people of color and lower socioeconomic status.
Criminal justice reform is an umbrella term that covers all aspects of the criminal justice process, from how law enforcement polices our communities to how prisons house and rehabilitate the convicted.
Criminal justice reform addresses structural issues in criminal justice systems such as racial profiling, police brutality, overcriminalization, mass incarceration, and recidivism. Criminal justice reform can take place at any point where the criminal justice system intervenes in citizens’ lives, including lawmaking, policing, and sentencing.
Prison reform focuses only on prison, but there are many aspects to that as well.
Prison reform is the attempt to improve conditions inside prisons, improve the effectiveness of a penal system, or implement alternatives to incarceration. It also focuses on ensuring the reinstatement of those whose lives are impacted by crimes.
Police:
In this system, the investigation is undertaken by the police. It is believed that the police have the tendency to become psychologically committed to bringing home the guilt of their chosen suspect. The job of investigation is to:
• Spot inspection,
• Ascertain facts and circumstances touching the offence under investigation,
• Collect evidence and
Prosecution:
The prosecution is the agency which plays an intermediary role between the judiciary and the police. It is they who take the police’s case forward to the courts.
As per interpreted by courts, the job of prosecution is to;
• Thoroughly scrutinize challans in connection with the arrest of the offenders,
• Present the prosecution case in the Court,
• Contest the claims of defence and ensure the observance of the provisions of law,
• Guide the Investigation Officer to remove lacunas left, if any, during an investigation.
Court:
The criminal court is the core of the criminal justice system. It preserves the “due process of law” throughout the arrest-to-release procedures in criminal justice. The job of the Court is to;
• Initiate proceedings after a charge have been drawn up,
• Give full information to the accused as to the offence he is charged with,
• Convict the accused if his guilt is proven and acquit him if any reasonable doubt is created.
Drawbacks of Criminal Justice System:
Some of the drawbacks of the system are as under;
• Inaccurate reporting of crimes to police
• Delayed reporting of crimes
• Malpractices during litigation
• Loopholes in investigation
• Delayed submission of challan
Does a common person have access to justice?
The answer from my side is No and the reasons are stated below:
An efficient judiciary is crucial to democracy, governance, security, and economic growth. An independent judiciary certifies that the Rule of Law is available to all citizens. People in Pakistan are also exhausted with such a system and therefore are reluctant to avail court remedies.
The World Justice Project (WJP) measures rule of law performance in 128 countries based on eight factors, which include; Constraints on Government Powers, Absence of Corruption, Open Government, Fundamental Rights, Order and Security, Regulatory Enforcement, Civil Justice, and Criminal Justice.
Pakistan's overall ranking in the rule of law index (RLI) for the year 2020 has dropped by one position as compared to the previous year. In 2019 Pakistan's ranking was 117 and its total score was 0.39, in 2020 Pakistan secured 0.38 scores and is in 120th position. In the South Asia region, Pakistan is only ahead of Afghanistan.
The Judicial system can be scrutinized on the basis of whether it is accessible, affordable, effectively free of discrimination, free of corruption and free of improper government influence. In civil justice, this means whether ADR (Alternative Dispute Resolution) mechanisms are accessible, impartial and effective. In criminal justice, it means whether criminal investigation and correctional justice system is effective and whether it reduced criminal behaviour in society.
Pakistan remained in the 118th position in the factor ranking of civil justice for 2020. The country was ranked on 92nd position in 2019. Pakistan has also fallen six-position down to 98th place in criminal justice factor ranking. In 2019 the country was on the same position.
Most people in Pakistan are unwilling to bring their legal matters before the courts; this is due to the number of defects in the existing judicial system. Following are some of the social, legal, economic and political obstacles to obtaining justice.
Most people in Pakistan are unwilling to bring their legal matters before the courts; this is due to the number of defects in the existing judicial system. Following are some of the social, legal, economic and political obstacles to obtaining justice.
Systematic Corruption has long been the biggest problem in Pakistan like malignant cancer. Due to such deep-rooted traditions of corruption, Pakistan dropped four spots over last year and has ranked 124 out of 180 countries on the 2020 corruption perception index.
The Law Reform Commissions formed by the governments of Pakistan revealed:
Police station is the main centre of corrupt activities… A case is not registered or an F.I.R. is not accepted nor is sufficient interest shown in the investigation unless the complainant gives a handsome gratification to the Officer-in-Charge of the police stations.
The Culture of Nepotism is another critical issue, parties taking advantage of law houses of relatives of serving judges. Such nepotism also prevails at the time of appointment and extension of judges. It was alleged that candidates with barely any standing at the bar but with strong links with sitting judges have been recommended for elevation.
Another barrier is people’s trust towards those systems which are running parallel to formal judiciary like panchayat, Jirga, etc. This is because such informal courts take less time and are more conveniently located and people are more familiar to understand the nature of the work of informal courts. In contrast, formal courts are located in remote areas and there are too many complexities in court procedures which lead people to renounce going to court. A World Bank ‘Enterprise Survey’ reported that 38 percent of Pakistani firms find the court system a major constraint in doing business in comparison to 14 percent in South Asia as a whole.
Lord Woolf (who worked to introduce reforms that may curtail the cost and time courts spent on civil proceedings) identified in his report that the three critical issues confronted by the civil justice system at the time were “costs, delays, and complexity”.
The World Bank report published in 2018 said that “on average, it takes 1,071 days to settle a commercial dispute in court. Then the case can go to the appeal stage first in a High Court and then in the Supreme Court. It is not unusual for a case to take more than a dozen years to be decided. This is one of the main reasons why Pakistan ranks 156th on the World Bank’s Enforcing Contracts Index”.
According to the report (during the period from 1-1-2021 to 31-5-2021) of the Law and Justice Commission of Pakistan the statement of cases Pending, Institution, and Disposal in the Superior Courts and District Judiciary of Pakistan, out of 3852796 cases pending before the courts 1705983 have been disposed of, which is only 44% of the total cases.
The most frequent cause of delay is due to the nonappearance of witnesses or the counsels of parties or sometimes it is because judges are on leave.
Misogynist and biased attitudes of state institutions such as police, judiciary, and society at large mostly blame the victims. In 2019 Women, Peace and Security Index, Pakistan ranked 164 out of 167 countries, only above Syria, Afghanistan, and Yemen, and the worst among nine South Asian countries.
One side of the system is full of the arbitrariness of lawyers as they charge high fees, or if they take small amounts then they deliberately prolong the case to collect a small amount for each hearing. Huge economic misbalance between the parties also creates hindrances. The Unending Cycle of Poverty and an expensive justice system urges people to quit their struggles for justice.
A psychological barrier among the people is 'yawning cynicism' on the true motives of judicial reforms. For instance, Chief Justice of Pakistan Supreme Court Asif Saeed Khosa's concept of model courts has been called a "silent revolution" in the judicial history of the country. But, surprisingly, the speedy trials by model courts have come under criticism from the lawyers' fraternity, who labelled them as "justice rushed, justice crushed".
There is also a lack of legislation concerning the modern-day requirements, and outdated laws with poor evidentiary standards cause a trust deficit among the public, towards the judiciary. The case in point is the ¨Mukhtara Mai case¨ wherein in 2005, the Lahore High Court cited “insufficient evidence” and subsequently acquitted 5 out of the 6 convicted rapists, while commuting the punishment of the sixth man to life imprisonment. Mai and the government appealed this decision, leading the Supreme Court of Pakistan to suspend the acquittal and hold hearings for an appeal,15 In 2011, the Supreme Court also acquitted the accused.
Another example is of Malalaś Case when the accused were acquitted on benefits of doubt or lack of evidence The Regional Deputy Police Chief, Azad Khan, was quoted in the “New York Times” saying that the “men were released for lack of evidence” chalking the verdict up to a failure of Pakistan’s Judicial system (8 out of 10 accused men in ´2012 attack on Malala were acquitted).
The Human Rights Watch (HRW) has released a report on the human rights violations committed by police in Pakistan. The report mentions custodial torture, extrajudicial executions, and other serious human rights violation including the refusal to register complaints (known as First Information Reports or FIRs) by the police. It also highlights the culture of impunity that exists in Pakistan and the lack of transparency in the police system.
Last but not the least, the security of lawyers, judges, and witnesses is also endangered especially when they are involved in litigations against terrorist, extremist or influential groups. This creates hurdles in the way for victims to seek legal remedy through court. An explicit example of such a security threat is the ´Quetta Massacre´ i.e. the Murder of Bilal Kasi, president of Baluchistan Bar council, by Jamat ul Ahrar, in August 2016. When his body was sent to a local hospital a suicide bomber targeted all lawyers, who had come to the hospital, regardless of what kind of cases they handled.[18] The same situation happens when the case is related to minority rights or alleged blasphemers.
Existing condition of prosecution in Pakistan:
The system of prosecution in Pakistan is so much ineffective and outdated that it is very easy for any influential and wealthy person to get himself acquitted after committing any sort of offence. For this reason the system also lost the confidence of people, especially educated persons of society who always try to resolve their disputes outside the Criminal Justice System. Pakistan’s legal system has, for good reason, garnered notoriety for its delays and inefficient management of case proceedings.
According to a report published by the UNDP in 2012, 43% of the cases filed in the courts in Sindh took 5 to 10 years to be resolved.
The situation takes on dire proportions when one considers criminal matters in particular, due primarily to the fact that individuals under trial are often kept in jail for years before their case is heard and decided. The result is an overburdened judiciary.
For an accused person, the frequency and ease of adjournments means that many more months are spent in jail just because a witness didn’t show up, or the judge was on leave. This state of affairs reflects major lapses in the criminal justice system. The most frequent cause for adjournments is non-appearance of witnesses to make a case against the accused. Judges are keen to wait for witnesses to show, but they appear to have no power to penalise non-appearance. The outcome is a delay. Judges are sometimes on leave; in such situations the matter is to be heard by an alternate judge. However, this process is fraught with confusion, and many times results in an adjournment by the alternate judge a needless burden on the prison administration.
Sometimes, prisoners are not presented before the Court on their date of hearing. This could be due to a shortage of vans needed to transport them to the Court premises. An administrative failure such as this creates room for prison officials to exercise discretion over who will make their date of hearing and who will be left behind. This is patently illegal. Strike calls by the lawyers’ bar associations results in many working days being lost, since the Courts cannot function without the striking lawyers. According to some reports, on average, every 4th working day is lost due to a strike.
Studies indicate that of the total population occupying jails in Pakistan, two-thirds of the inmates are under-trial prisoners.
This means that these are individuals charged with a crime, though not yet proven guilty, who are sitting in jails waiting for their trial to conclude. There remains a chance that they will be found innocent and sent home free, only after having wasted years of their lives behind bars.
Sometimes, accused parties fail to show up because they were never notified of a case being registered against them. This could be due to the fact that methods of notification are outdated the law only provides for snail mail, or even a public messenger calling your name out on the streets with a drum, but does not provide for modern methods such as facsimile or electronic messaging, telephone calls or messages.
Upon a deeper study, it was noted that a majority of times cases were adjourned for very similar reasons. Below is an overview of the major reasons adjournments were found to be granted:
A conviction rate is a number, usually presented as a percentage that indicates how frequently arrests in a given community lead to actual criminal charges. In most countries, being arrested simply means that one has been charged with a crime. Most arrestees appear before a court, which determines whether the arrest should lead to a criminal conviction.
The average conviction rate in Pakistan is just 11.66%, which is very low compared to other countries. In India it is 37%, South Africa 38%, Australia 85%, USA 85% and in Japan it is 99%, which is highest in the world. A low conviction rate is one of the indicators of poor performance of any criminal justice system.
Police in Pakistan’s Criminal Justice System:
Prosecution process starts with the Police or Investigating agency in almost all civilized societies of the world. In Pakistan it also starts with the investigation of Police. The basic root cause of failure of Pakistan’s Criminal Justice System lies with the Police. Police in Pakistan is the most corrupt institution of the country and corruption in Pakistan Police is beyond imaginations. Although basic purpose of Police Force is to protect the citizen but in Pakistan an ordinary citizen not only hates Police but always try to avoid the Police and all matters related with Police. Police Station is not a place for gentleman and every gentleman in Pakistan is afraid of going to Police Station even to register his genuine complaint. Criminal Justice System comes into motion with investigation of Police and in Pakistan it is the very stage when most of cases are destroyed due to non-professional and corrupt investigation Officers. Any influential and wealthy accused can easily get the clean chit from police during investigation. When the case is so strong even then the accused can easily bribe the Investigation Officer and destroy the evidence which ultimately results in acquittal of accused in courts. Unfortunately there is no distinction of Policing and Investigation in Pakistan. There is no specialized unit or force within police who is trained in investigation. It means in Pakistan even the cases of homicide are regularly being investigated by the low ranked, non-professional, non trained, low-paid and corrupt police officers. As a result, the case is being destroyed at the beginning by the IO or Investigating Officer.
Prosecution Departments:
Prosecution departments are established after 2006/07 in different provinces of Pakistan. Previously there was separate branch in Police known as Prosecution Branch and that Branch was responsible for the prosecution on behalf of state. Although Provincial Governments established Prosecution Departments but they are toothless and have no powers in practice. Provincial Governments in Pakistan’s provinces so far fail to provide Prosecution with adequate resources and essential legislation which is essential for the working of modern day Criminal Justice System. Prosecutor is powerless in Pakistan who is sandwiched between the two most powerful, authoritative and corrupt institutions of Pakistan i.e. Police and Judiciary. Prosecutor cannot direct Investigation Officer to properly collect the evidence during investigation, he is only authorized to scrutinize the investigation report after its completion and till that time, IO’s almost destroyed all important pieces of evidence. A Prosecutor can even not direct the Police Investigator to apply the correct section of law during investigation. Further even in case of no evidence, Prosecutor has no power to return the case back to police or drop the case but he has to forward it to the Magistrate after recording his opinion (that opinion is also worthless because it is not binding on court). Hence in practice Prosecutor in Pakistan only works as postman between Police and Judiciary. The condition of Prosecution Departments is so disappointing that at most of the stations they don’t have their proper offices to work. So without any resources, proper legislation, government attention and spirit to work, the Prosecution Departments are only rubber stamps in Pakistan.
Judiciary in Pakistan Criminal Justice System:
Although Government invested lot of money and resources in the Judiciary in last decade yet the institution is in bad shape and fails to deliver.
In Criminal Justice System of Pakistan, judges are highly paid and have more resources than Police and Prosecution but their performance is disappointed. The acquittal rate is Pakistan’s courts is almost over 80 percent which means if person commits crime in Pakistan he got 80 percent chances of acquittal in this system.
Another major problem is the delayed justice as criminal cases are decided not in months but in years in Pakistani Courts. There are many reasons for inefficiency of Courts in Pakistan’s Criminal Justice System. First of all the case is being destroyed by the Police Investigator at investigation stage which means it always lacks the required level of evidence which is necessary for the conviction. In Pakistan, Lawyer Bar Councils are very powerful and influential bodies who virtually dictate their terms on courts and if lawyer want to prolong a case for months or even years, judge cannot stop him. This is also the main cause of delay in decision of cases. There is also rampant corruption in judiciary and a wealthy person can easily get clean chit from the courts with different tactics. Due to increasing perks and privileges in judiciary the levels of corruption are decreased in last one decade but there is still lot of room for the improvement.
Pending cases in High court and Supreme Court:
The country’s superior and lower judiciaries are dealing with a huge backlog of 2.144 million cases as 4.102m cases were decided and 4.06m new cases were filed during 2021, it emerged on Tuesday. The overall pendency at the start of 2021 before all the courts was 2.16m.
• The Lahore High Court adjudicated 149,362 cases last year and 148,436 new cases were instituted during the same period and total pending cases were 187,255 on Dec 31 at the LHC.
• The Sindh High Court disposed of over 31,000 cases last year, but around 34,000 new cases were also instituted during the same period and total pending cases stood at over 84,000.
• There were 4,194 cases pending at The Balochistan High Court when the 2021 began and it disposed of 7,287 cases and 7,182 new cases were filed during previous and pending cases are 4,108 at the BHC.
• Similarly, The Peshawar High Court received 23,941 cases and decided 20,528 cases during 2021 and pendency stood at 44,703 cases.
• The Islamabad High Court adjudicated 7,918 cases in 2021 and 9,433 new cases were instituted and pending cases were 17,456 at the end of last year
• According to the statistics gathered by the Law and Justice Commission of Pakistan, at the start of 2021, 46,695 cases were pending before the Supreme Court and at the end of year they stood at 51,766 as 12,838 cases were decided while 18,075 new cases filed at the apex court last year.
Upon a deeper study, it was noted that a majority of times cases were adjourned for very similar reasons. Below is an overview of the major reasons adjournments were found to be granted.
Daniel Pearl case law on weak prosecution:
The detailed verdict of the Supreme Court in the Daniel Pearl case has once again established the poor state of investigation and prosecution in Pakistan. The judgement, authored by Justice Sardar Tariq Masood, pointed out clearly the prosecution’s failure to prove the guilt of Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh who is the prime accused in the murder of Wall Street Journel reporter Daniel Pearl.
The Sindh High Court had last year overturned Sheikh’s conviction and the family of Pearl had appealed to the Supreme Court. The detailed verdict of the Supreme Court is a direct indictment of the prosecution and should put the system to shame. The verdict says that regarding each and every piece of evidence, there was uncertainty on the part of the witnesses and it was a settled matter that the benefit of the doubt would apply to the accused. The verdict states that the evidence furnished during the trial was full of factual and legal defects.
There is little doubt that Sheikh is a dangerous terrorist. His track record of criminality ranges from kidnapping to blackmailing and murder. He has hoodwinked the authorities multiple times and committed horrendous terror crimes. The fact that Pakistan’s criminal justice system cannot prove the guilt of such a man even after keeping him in a death cell for two decades speaks volumes for the state of the system. The unfortunate reality is that despite this dismal situation, little or no headway has been made in reforming the system. Investigation and prosecution remain in a shambles, ravaged by corruption, incompetence and habitual manipulation.
Reforming Pakistan’s Criminal Justice System
Pakistan’s dysfunctional criminal justice system poses serious risks for domestic, regional and international security; the federal and provincial governments must make its reform a top priority.
The ineffectiveness of Pakistan’s criminal justice system has serious repercussions for domestic, regional and international security. Given the gravity of internal security challenges, the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP)-led government in Islamabad, and the four provincial governments should make the reform of an anarchic criminal justice sector a top domestic priority.
The low conviction rate, between 5 and 10 per cent at best, is unsurprising in a system where investigators are poorly trained and lack access to basic data and modern investigation tools. Prosecutors, also poorly trained, are not closely involved in investigations. Corruption, intimidation and external interference in trials, including by the military’s intelligence agencies, compromise cases before they even come to court. Given the absence of scientific evidence collection methods and credible witness protection programs, police and prosecutors rely mostly on confessions by the accused, which are inadmissible in court. Militants and other major criminals are regularly released on bail, or their trials persist for years even as they plan operations from prison. Terrorism cases, too, produce few convictions.
The failure of prosecutors to achieve convictions in major cases, such as the June 2008 Danish embassy bombing, the September 2008 Marriott Hotel bombing in Islamabad, and the March 2009 attack on a police academy in Lahore, has weakened public confidence in the state’s ability to respond to terrorism. Despite the increasing urgency of reform, Pakistan’s police, and indeed the whole criminal justice system, still largely functions on the imperative of maintaining public order rather than tackling 21st century crime.
A military-led counter-terrorism effort, defined by haphazard and heavy-handed force against some militant networks, short-sighted peace deals with others, and continued support to India and Afghanistan-oriented jihadi groups, has yielded few successes. Instead, the extremist rot has spread to most of the country. The military’s tactics of long-term detentions, enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings provoke public resentment and greater instability, undermining the fight against violent extremism.
Wresting civilian control over counter-terrorism policy, a key challenge of the current democratic transition, will require massive investments in police and prosecutors, specifically to enhance investigative capacity and case building. Successes in combating serious crime, including kidnappings-for-ransom and sectarian terrorism, during the democratic transition of the 1990s demonstrate that civilian law enforcement agencies can be effective when properly authorized and equipped. With the scale of violence far greater today, the government needs all the more to utilize political and fiscal capital to modernize the criminal justice sector.
Criminal justice cannot, however, be isolated from the broader challenges of the democratic transition. The repeated suspension of the constitution by military regimes, followed by extensive reforms to centralize power and to strengthen their civilian allies, notably the religious right, have undermined constitutionalism and the rule of law. General Zia-ul-Haq’s Islamisation of the constitution and laws during the 1980s altered the basic structure of parliamentary democracy, introduced religious, sectarian and gender biases into law and made the violation of fundamental rights not just common practice but a matter of state policy. As a result, Pakistan moved farther and farther away from international standards of justice. The current parliament has, through the eighteenth constitutional amendment, reversed many of these distortions and added new provisions that, if implemented, may indeed strengthen constitutionalism and political stability. More legal reforms are needed. Discriminatory religious laws remain in force, and the justice system is still predisposed towards miscarriage.
In May 2009, the National Judicial (Policy Making) Committee (NJPC), headed by the Supreme Court chief justice, produced the National Judicial Policy (NJP) 2009 to make the justice system more responsive to citizen needs. The policy applies enormous pressures on civil and criminal courts to resolve cases within a fixed time frame. However, with a lopsided emphasis on speedier delivery, the NJP has failed to address critical weaknesses in the judiciary, including the criminal justice system. An already low conviction rate could decline even further. While slow delivery remains a critical problem, policymakers should avoid resorting to quick fixes and procedural short-cuts such as parallel court systems and informal dispute resolution mechanisms. Such measures, including anti-terrorism courts, have failed to produce the desired results, and have also undermined the quality of justice. An enhanced and reformed criminal justice sector remains the best and only sustainable option.
International allies, particularly the U.S. and the EU, should allocate the necessary resources to make Pakistan a strong criminal justice partner. A lopsided partnership with Pakistan’s military has yielded few sustainable counter-terrorism successes. Al-Qaeda affiliated jihadi groups continue to operate in the Pakistani heartland, undermining the country’s security and the security of its neighbours and the international community more broadly. The international community must shift the focus of security assistance to the civilian law enforcement agencies, which would yield long-term counter-terrorism dividends.
Suggestions:
1. Rather than creating a parallel judicial system the Government should strengthen the existing system of administration of justice which is time-tested and enjoys the confidence of the people. Given due facilities, this system has the capacity and strength to ensure the expeditious disposal of cases.
2. With a view to resolve the problem of backlog and ensure quick disposal of cases, the Government should increase the number of judges and judicial offices.
3. The problem of delays may also be tackled through enhancing the retirement age of judges. The Government may, therefore, also consider this option.
4. The Government should provide necessary funds for construction of proper court rooms, provision of adequate ministerial staff, computers and stationary, etc to courts.
5. Arrangement should be made for the pre and in service training of judicial officers. Libraries should be established and adequate books and other material made available to judges.
6. With a view to attract capable, competent and qualified persons as judges and judicial officers, their terms and conditions of service should be improved. In particular, the problems of accommodation and transport should be resolved.
7. The system of process servicing should be improved. The task of process serving in criminal justice system should be assigned to a separate agency under the control of High Courts and District Courts. Such agency should be utilized for process serving both in civil and criminal cases. The court should make full use of the system of “ substituted service”.
8. For timely submission of Challan, the investigating branch of the police should be strengthened, the number of forensic science laboratories should be increased and the courts should take serious notice of negligence or undue delay/ default in the timely submission of Challan.
9. Better seating arrangements should be made for litigants and witnesses, and amount payable to witnesses as travelling allowance and diet money should be rationalized. Witnesses and litigants should also be given due protection. The courts should take serious view of situations when witnesses deliberately avoid appearance in courts. Arrangement should be made for transporting under-trial prisoners to courts. The High Courts should issue instructions to courts to conduct hearing on day-to-day basis.
