The participants of National Judicial Conference on Sunday presented their recommendations at the concluding day of the moot, which were read out by the Chairman National Judicial (Policymaking) Committee/Chief Justice of Pakistan, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry.
He said that he would be keenly looking forward to present these recommendations before the committee for follow up action which, he was sure, would greatly contribute for further improvement in the working of judicial administration of the country.
Following were the recommendations:
1. Multidimensional approach must be adopted for further improving implementation of the policy, taking into account current areas needed to be addressed. Dialogue between Bench, Bar and other stakeholders should be encouraged by creating a sense of ownership about the Policy. It should be ensured that the trickle down impact of the policy would be a substantive justice rather than focusing on mere disposal of cases.
2. Public interest litigation would be more successful with separate benches of judges established to hear human rights cases for a specified time, involvement of commissions to share the burden of the judiciary, adoption of procedural rules by supreme court to channelize the cases, awareness amongst the legal fraternity to report the cases of human rights violation to High Courts, holding of preliminary inquiry before taking suo motu action.
3. The Bench and Bar should work in a friendly atmosphere while maintaining a professional distance along-with dignity, appreciation and respect for each other. Periodic inter-professional learning workshops should be organised to allow both tiers of the judiciary to vent their grievances and concerns to foster compassion and understanding.
4. Measures of deterrence, prevention and education should be applied to encounter corruption. It is necessary to strengthen the surveillance systems of courts especially at the district level. Malicious and false accusations against the good name of the judicial officers should be strictly discouraged and addressed with disciplinary action.
5. The Bench and Bar should jointly formulate and propose credible amendments in the existing laws/rules for ADR, as there is a pressing need for inexpensive and effective ADR mechanism. Awareness campaigns and programmes must be launched to ensure that the public at large is aware of the benefits of the mechanism. Judges should be trained to effectively employ ADR mechanism.
6. There is a dire need for reformation of jails to provide an opportunity to the convicts to provide such an environment to them so that after serving their term, they should be reintegrated into society as responsible and law-abiding citizens. Prisoners should be treated humanely and their recognised rights should be protected. Jail manual is a comprehensive document but many of its provisions are not being enforced, the authorities should ensure that the same is followed. Women and juveniles are particularly vulnerable members of society and therefore requisite care should be taken with them.
7. Plagiarism and counterfeiting should be treated as theft, deception and robbery. This calls for a review of our ethical attitudes towards the IPR Laws among the general public and the intellectual property owners by all available means. Counterfeiting medicines, syringes, health care devices, diagnostic kits, and other related medical equipment should be declared serious offences against humanity with enhanced punishment.
8. The curriculum of legal education should be so designed that it should just not be skill-based but should also pave way for future legal jurists. A council or committee comprising all stakeholders should be constituted with the responsibility of formulating a legal education policy to be designated as 'national legal council'. Continuing legal education for members of the Bench and Bar should be augmented at all levels.
9. State of the art and contextually relevant information technology must be used to solve the widely known problems of Pakistani justice system, which has brought the system on the brink of disaster. The power of IT should be harnessed in court management and case management to subsequently improve the litigant's court experience. To this end, national judicial automation committee should be empowered to play a leading role in conjunction with the justice sector and IT experts both in the public and private sector.