An Open Letter to Chief Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah
BY Col. Syed Riaz Jafri (Retd)
Westridge, Rawalpindi
Let me at the outset confess that I am no legal brain, but after hearing your address to the lawyers at the Rawalpindi High Court Bar Association wherein you showed an honest and sincere resolve to make judiciary at district level more effective, I have mustered the courage to suggest the following: (I will be brief, for, you are well aware of such matters)
1. Defending a known culprit by the lawyers
Sir, I have yet to come across a lawyer who knowingly doesn’t defend a culprit. Sir, a culprit and not an accused. Some smart lawyers even boast of such skills to have gotten scot-free real murderers. Don’t they help the crime flourish? They quote some legal ethics to render legal assistance to anyone seeking such help. Agreed, but the moment they come to know that the person they are defending HAS committed the offence, they should stop defending him further. If this practice is somehow imposed and the people know that if they commit an offence no lawyer would defend them, the crime graph in the country shall fall considerably. How can it be done, you know the best, Sir.
One possible way – a stricture issued by the court to the lawyer who in the opinion of the court defended the culprit knowing him/her to be such. And an accumulation of three such strictures should debar the lawyer and cancel his/her license to practice further.
2. Why engage a lawyer? Buy the judge instead
You may have heard this unfortunate phrase doing rounds in our courts. Kindly, therefore, raise the remunerations of the judges high enough to make them temptation-free. And, even then if a judge indulges in any corrupt practice, he MUST simply be dealt with in the most severe manner.
3. Out of court settlement
What I am going to say here might look strange, but this was practiced by the Moors and is still followed by rural Spaniards. My suggestion is as follows:
Extensive publicity by all means and media be given and all present litigants in the 1.3 million pending cases of the Punjab be asked to settle their disputes within three months mutually or through local elders and jirgas amongst themselves out of the court. Thereafter, only those cases which are not mutually settled would be taken up by the courts. The only difference would now be that the person(s) found guilty by these courts would be given the MAXIMUM possible dose and no mercy shown to them whatsoever. Once people know of the dire punishments awaiting the real culprits, they would prefer to settle the issues out of the court. I think, more than 2/3 rd of the 1.3 million pending cases would be settled out of the courts.
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