LAHORE: Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Asif Saeed Khan Khosa has said that the constitution of the country provides equal rights to all citizens.

The CJP said this while addressing the closing session of second workshop on gender based violence laws held in collaboration with Asian Development Bank at Punjab Judicial Academy here on Saturday.

He said steps had been taken to protect the rights of the citizens and establishment of gender based violence courts was one of those steps.

"Our first step is against fake evidences and witnesses and cases against such elements were under proceeding in various courts", he added.

The CJP said the second step was to enhance the capacity building of judges and we were thankful to Punjab Judicial Academy which was standing with us in achieving this goal.

He said police reforms was the third step aiming at the welfare of masses and effective steps were being taken in this regard.

The CJP said with these initiatives there was 11 percent reduction in filing of new cases in district courts besides 20 percent reduction in higher courts.

The chief justice said the next step was setting up of police assessment committees comprising retired session judges and lawyers.

Each court was being linked with research centre to enhance the capacity building of the courts, he maintained. The Chief Justice of Pakistan said artificial intelligence would bring revolution in our judiciary and the decision of cases would be made in less time.

He further said 10,600 cases of murder and narcotics had been completed in criminal model courts established across the country.

The CJP said there was a need of a passion to work for people welfare and added that article 10 of the constitution gives a right of fair trial to all the citizens.

Supreme Court Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah said gender based violence was very horrible aspect of our society.

He said, "we have studied this aspect in detail with the collaboration of Asian Development Bank."

He further said the journey which was started from a district and a court now had spread across all the districts of the country.

Lahore High Court (LHC) Chief Justice Sardar Muhammad Shamim Khan said it was need of the hour to make collective efforts to check gender based violence.

He said Islamic basic rights and laws have special position in all the laws and rights of the world.

He lauded the services of Punjab Judicial Academy for holding such a good workshop and thanked Asian Development Bank for their collaboration.

Certificates were also distributed among the participants of the workshop.