Chief Justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry has said that sacrifices of lawyers will always be remembered.
Addressing members of Sindh and other Bar Councils at Supreme Court Karachi Registry‚ on Saturday‚ he said that lawyers should avoid strikes to provide speedy justice to the people.
“The people of Pakistan now expect better governance and equal opportunity for their individual and collective prosperity. They also expect that the criminal justice system of the country should also be more responsive to their day to day needs. They have the legitimate expectancy to be given cheap and immediate but substantive justice with minimum of hassle,” the CJP added.
The Chief Justice said we are committed to provide justice to the people but shortage of judges is the main hurdle in the provision of speedy justice.
Brushing aside the criticism on judiciary, the Chief Justice said that the judiciary never tried to play the role of administration or parliament.
He said that the court only took law into account while issuing verdict on Karachi law and order case. He said that had the verdict been implemented in true letter and spirit the law and order situation of the city would have improved.
Justice Chaudhry said that the judiciary respects all the state institutions, adding that its role is not to oppose the parliament and the administration but to protect democracy.
Paying tribute to Karachi lawyers, the chief justice said that the sacrifices they have rendered for the restoration of judiciary are memorable.
“The lawyers from the city of the Quaid have always been in the vanguard in taking up the issues of importance to the people at large. This city has the singular honor of being the city of the Quaid who in his own right was the leading constitutional lawyer of the Indo-Pak subcontinent,” he said.
He said that the post-March 2009 Pakistan is a new country where the people have tasted the flavor of rule of law and supremacy of the Constitution. Now these twin principles are considered as the fountain from where flows the legitimacy of all actions done in the country. In this period, many landmark judgments have been rendered by the apex Court of the country which all have one common denominator i.e. “everybody is equal before the law”.
He said that there are a lot of difficulties on a way to justice, adding that the key hurdle is corruption.
The Chief Justice said that the time to compromise justice on the pretext of State necessity has long gone past. Now the only benchmark left is the Constitution of Pakistan 1973 and other laws which are to provide the foundation for administration of justice in the country.
Same principles were applied in cases related to law & order situation in Karachi being the economic and corporate face of Pakistan to the rest of the world. It is the added responsibility of everybody to ensure law & order is intact in this city and governance is improved.
Now it is up to the other institutions to ensure these judgments are implemented in letter and spirit to reap the benefit inherent in the strictures passed by the apex Court. Who can deny the fact that holding of free and fair elections on completely up-dated and error-free electoral rolls is the only way forwarded for the whole nation. The Court has also observed that holding of local bodies election in the country including the cantonment areas is a constitutional obligation which should be complied with immediately, he added.
