Justice delayed…

Ever so often, for ever so long
Throughout my childhood and adolescence, one of my Taya used to visit Lahore once or twice a month from Toba Tek Singh. He had a case that had eventually moved to the High Court in Lahore, and the hearing dates of the case would bring him to the city. The case was already in courts when I became aware of his visits, and it was decided as I was finishing my Master’s degree: it must have gone on for a good 20 years or more.
It was a monetary dispute of some Rs 30,000 odd, which in the 1960s might have been a handsome sum, but add 20 years of expenses of lawyers, travel, and value of time to it and that amount pales away in comparison. But it was a matter of principle too for my uncle, and for the opposing side as well I guess and so they continued with the case and our judicial system took more than two decades to decide on a dispute of Rs 30,000 odd. I am glad there was no possibility of going to the Supreme Court in appeal or it would have taken even longer. I guess I should be grateful to the judiciary for they ensured that we had our Taya’s visit every so often.
The recently announced judicial policy, given after the restoration of the judiciary, lays stress on speedy delivery of justice: justice demands that the decisions be fair and that they be delivered to the supplicants in reasonable time and at reasonable cost.
But not a whole lot has changed even after the restoration it seems. A friend, who lives in Islamabad is now in a similar position. He has a case in the civil courts in Lahore and for the past two years he has been travelling to Lahore once every week or every second week for hearings. But the case is still far from being decided, and of course, even after a decision from the civil court, there will be many appeals before the case is over. Over the two years witness statements have been recorded, evidence has been presented and arguments have been made, still the case lingers on, and for a number of reasons.
Civil court judges have hundreds of cases on their cause lists every day. They have no time to even hear all of them far less think about them. And given their workloads, adjournments are quite common. It takes a judge many hearings, spread over months, to get through evidence, witnesses, and arguments and get a good understanding of the case. But sometimes when all this happens, the judge is changed or the case is sent to another judge and the whole process starts all over. My friend’s case, over the last two years, has been heard by four judges so far.
But this is not the only reason for delays. The opposing side has an interest in lengthening the proceedings. They know their case is weak and so they would rather delay a judgment as long as that is possible and deny justice to the other side. Their lawyer does not show up for many hearings. It takes a number of hearings to get anyone summoned or any direction of the court implemented.
Over the last two years, my friend, the litigant, has spent a huge amount of money on keeping the case going. His trips to Lahore, cost of stay in Lahore, lawyer’s fee, sundry costs involved in getting various papers to be submitted, and last not least, the cost of getting witnesses to Lahore, some of whom had to travel quite a distance to be there. Some of the costs escalated due to the frequent adjournments: witnesses had to be summoned multiple times before their statements could be recorded and they could be asked questions.
It is interesting that in off-the-record conversations, judges who had listened to the case previously and now have been shifted to other duties or have been transferred, have told my friend that his case is a straightforward one and does not require a lot of work before a decision can be taken. Yet, it has been going on for two years, and might take quite a bit more time, and all this still at the lower courts level: the High Court, where one side or the other is surely going to appeal the judgment of the court, is likely to take much longer.
My friend suspects that since his opponents are rich, powerful and well-connected people, they have been able to delay the progress of the case and have, at times, even tried to influence judges. But even if we assume this is not the case, and if the progress of this case is the norm, how can we say justice is being done? It seems the litigant is being punished for insisting that his grievance be heard.
The Supreme Court, since its restoration, has taken some good decisions and has, by pursuing some important causes, some against powerful interest groups, created a certain amount of respect for itself. And people have, after a long time, started to believe that they might be able to get justice from courts, but if this change does not come down to the lower courts, the ordinary citizen will lose hope again. The Supreme Court, responsible for delivery of justice through the lower courts as well, should not let this moment of hope go to waste.
A lawyer friend had, a few years, ago, said that they usually do not bother too much about a case while it is in lower courts. They just use the opportunity of lower court hearings to get all papers in order and fine-tune arguments. The real battle starts at the High Court level. If this is the case, should we even have lower courts? What function do they serve in the system? Or should we, apart from speeding up systems, also find ways that fewer disputes should come to the courts and even fewer should reach the appellate level? There has been a lot of work that has been done on reforms in justice sector. Whatever the solutions, they should be implemented. People want justice: fair treatment and fair judgments at reasonable cost and in reasonable time. The current system is still unable to provide it.

The writer is an Associate Professor of Economics at LUMS (currently on leave) and a Senior Advisor at Open Society Foundation (OSF). He can be reached at [email protected]