- First cases decided through video-link
The apex courts in most developing countries are usually considered to be conservative, with a hidebound attitude against structural reforms or technology-based modernisation of judicial proceedings. This institutional resistance is compounded by a paucity of government funding and the insufficient number of available judges. In Pakistan, the slow, long drawn and litigant-unfriendly judicial system, with its vast backlog of overall 1.9 million pending cases, made the old plodding system obsolete, untenable and inadequate. The Chief Justice of Pakistan, Mr Justice Asif Saeed Khosa, has, from Day One of his incumbency, strongly championed the cause of provision of swift and cheap justice to litigants, making structural and systemic changes, rooting out reasons for delay, particularly needless adjournments, and rationalising the judges’ workload for better efficiency. On Monday, the CJP, heading a three-member bench including Mr Justice Sardar Tariq Masood and Mr Justice Mazhar Alam Khan Miankhel, achieved the laudable distinction of hearing the maiden e-court cases in Pakistan’s judicial history from its principal seat at Islamabad, through a video linkup with its Karachi branch registry. Advocate Mohammad Yousuf Leghari earned the privilege of arguing the first video link case, but credit also goes to the Supreme Court’s IT Committee comprising Mr Justice Mushir Alam and Mr Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah, as also National Database and Registration Authority, for successful completion of the project, which functioned perfectly during the first hearing.
One of the five cases heard on Monday was typical of the ills plaguing the judicial system, a three-year delay in granting bail to an accused, for which a report was sought from the Sindh High Court, and regarding its astronomical costs, Rs2 million to Rs2.5 million in expenses were reportedly saved on that one day alone. Perhaps ‘conclusive proof’ DNA, e-mails, SMSs and audio-visual evidence can also be made admissible in future. While the innovative step has been widely welcomed, with its possible extension to the Supreme Court’s Quetta registry, and calls for expansion of the e-court system to circuit benches of High Courts, the real spanner in the judicial works lies in the clumsy lower courts, in the quicksands of corruption, inefficiency, scandalous behaviour and delay, with cases ‘inherited’ from generation to generation, and where everybody seemingly ‘lies like an eyewitness’. These irritants require urgent attention and speedy remedy.
