Town Court

Justice forms  an important pillar of any state, but it stands rather shaky in Pakistan for as long as its history. Like many other developing countries, Pakistan is facing a judicial crisis, ranging from Musharaf’s treason case to parallel obsolete form of illegal judicial system of Jirgas. A number of victims and hundreds of thousands cases are still pending. And we are hearing a famous dialogue of Hindi Movie ‘Damini’ ‘Tareekh pay Tareekh, Tareekh pay Tareekh’.

We often curse the rotten judiciary system of Pakistan. Every victim is pleading to Chief Justice of Pakistan, as if he is a super hero who will solve every case with a magic wand. We stay ignorant of the fact that the basic unit of law enforcement is the police station, while local bodies stand as nurseries of a democratic system.

So why can’t be ‘Town Court’ for judicial system?

Karachi, for example, comprise of 110 police stations divided into 10 Police Division, in which several misdemeanor crimes are reported (and most of the crimes go unreported because of lengthy procedure and less probability of free and fair justice) and their cases are transferred to relevant courts, which are already overloaded with high numbers of felony crimes. Due to nature of priority of crime these misdemeanor crimes face ‘Tareekh pay Tareekh’, making nothing but another addition in statistics.

In order to provide quick and cheap justice, we can introduce the idea of One Court per Police Station or One court per Police Division, which we are calling ‘Town Courts’. There is no rocket Science involved in it. A similar format used by Government of KPK  under the ‘Mobile Court’ banner is already producing effective results.

Nowadays, people are going to different political offices and illegal Jirgas to get quick justice.  They often face favoritism and influential threats and end up either quitting or accepting  senseless and illegal decisions.

The concept of “Town Court” will help in providing fast and inexpensive justice. It will increase  confidence in peoples so that they won’t have to spend their lifelong time, money and effort to get  justice.  It will also create job opportunities to law personnel and will improve society on the whole, ultimately strengthening the pillar of justice to bear the weight of state.

Disclaimer:

This blog is not valid for court.

This blog is for infotainment purpose & my passion to share. No direct financial assistance is sought from this blog. I am sharing my experiences and learning. Your contribution will be highly appreciated.

(This post was earlier published at Awaz-e-Pakistan !!!  written by myself and Fareed Ul Farooqui)