Now how do we explain this? more importantly what is the way forward? We need to understand that Courts of "municipal law" ultimately operate under "realpolitik of state" and unless we resolve the larger political issues either by reconciliation or by force courts might themselves be insecure to dispense justice. Judges and judicial officers who defy the norms will become targets. Institutional capacity of the state is important to defend even the courts; a point totally ignored by superior judiciary and the legal community as it passes it judgements or contrives ever newer slogans against the law enforcement institutions in Karachi or Baluchistan. ... Also judiciary has spent for too much time and energy on larger constitutional and political issues; instead it should have focused on improving the workings of trial courts, even recommending changes in law to reduce the power of "unscrupulous lawyers" who have emerged as the biggest supporters of crime in the country...today the law and procedures of the "trial court" in Pakistan - and also India - are totally incapable of handing down "convictions"..whereas lawyers in developed world are now restricted to merely providing the "best legal services" to their clients, (they cannot say that their client is innocent when they know that he is not) their counterparts in Pakistan are free to lie, fabricate and cheat the process and courts to totally rescue their clients from the process of law even if they know that they are outright criminals; the definition of a brilliant lawyer in Pakistan is one who can cheat or influence the courts to "dry clean" their "corrupt and criminal clients"...ask yourself how many big known corrupt politicians and businessmen even when tried were really convicted? the only people who get convicted are those who are facing the wrath of some powerful elements in the system....If we really want to reduce the violence in our cities and villages then we also need to reform the legal profession...they are clearly part of the problem...
Posted on: Wed, 26 Jun 2013 07:14:49 +0000