CJP Justice Asif Saeed Khosa gives a positive response over PM Imran Khan’s offer
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ISLAMABAD - Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Asif Saeed Khosa Wednesday while appreciating Prime Minister Imran Khan’s offer to allocate additional resources for improvement of the judicial system, said efforts were being made to expedite disposal of cases.
The measures like provision of extra resources to the judiciary would go a long way in improving matters, he said while speaking at the inauguration ceremony of IT-based facilities.
The CJP referring to the PM’s statements about the functioning of the judicial system, said, “Everyone should know that the judges are working hard but no one is perfect.”
He said there was a perception that courts were hearing the cases of powerful people while cases of weaker were not tried, and clarified with the facts and figures that there were around 3100 judges and judicial magistrates in the whole country who had decided 3.6 million cases.
All of them (litigants), he added, were not powerful but most of them were poor and weaker, which showed that “all are equal in the eyes of law”.
He said the courts decided cases on merit without fear or favour and the judges were burning midnight oil by working under existing resources instead of demanding more or amendments in the laws.
The CJP said the Supreme Court had decided all the criminal appeals, except a few, pending for 25 years. The establishment of model trial courts across the country had given marvelous results and reduced the backlog of murder, narcotics, magistrate trials and civil appeals, including rent and family cases, he added.
He said the model courts had conducted trial of more than 73,000 cases in a short span of time and dispensed relief to the litigants by achieving the target of zero pendency in most of the districts.
Moreover, the Supreme Court also took steps for police reforms and the post of Superintendent of Police Complaints was created in each district that had also reduced 30% burden of the cases on district courts and 15% on high courts, he added.
The chief justice said they had landed in the 21st century, the century of technology and advancement. The newly launched IT-based facilities, he said, would provide an effective and efficient platform to discourage adjournments and encourage legal fraternity to plead their cases without any delay, which would help improve disposal of cases and reduce the backlog, and to get prompt justice from the courts by saving time and money.
The CJP expressed thanks to the IT Committee of Supreme Court of Pakistan headed by Justice Mushir Alam and comprising Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah and other stakeholders, including the Ministry of Law & Justice, National Database Registration Authority, Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL-P) US Department of State, US Department of Justice and COMSATS Islamabad and the team for their untiring efforts to materialize the vision of expeditious and inexpensive justice through the application of information technology.
Earlier addressing the ceremony, Justice Mushir Alam said the launching of IT- based applications was litigant-friendly initiative towards transformation of the Supreme Court of Pakistan through information communication technology (ICT) so as to make the judicial system more responsive to the needs of people approaching the court for redressal of their grievances.
The ICT applications would benefit all the stakeholders of justice sector, including litigants, lawyers, general public, media and academia, he added. It would help them track the cases and keep them abreast of the latest updates of the cases in the Supreme Court.
Justice Mushir Alam gave a brief introduction of the IT driven applications.
– The Android Mobile App can be downloaded from the Google Play Store starting Wednesday and carries the following features: •Case search with complete history of the case. •Judgment search using multiple parameters •Personalized cause list search for registered users •Important news highlights •Roster search •User profile and registration •Personalized notifications
– Supreme Court Call Center (1818) Anyone can dial 1818 from their mobile phone or landline to avail the following services: •Cause list queries •Judgment queries •Case search queries •Roster queries •Process related queries
– Complete Dedicated Video Linking of all Five Courts All the five courts (Court No.01 to 05) at the Principal Seat Islamabad have been fully equipped as dedicated video link courts capable of conducting proceedings in real time with any of the four branch registries from Peshawar, Lahore, Karachi and Quetta simultaneously.
