|
An Open Letter to CJ LHC
Honourable Chief Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah
LahoreHigh Courts,
Lahore.
Sir,
Let me at the outset confess that I am no legal brain, but after hearing
your address to the lawyers at Rawalpindi High Court Bar Association wherein
you showedan honest and sincere resolve to make judiciary at district
level more effective, I pick up the courage tosuggest 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 their such skills to have gotten scot-free real murders. 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 licence to practice further.
2.
Why engage a lawyer? Buy the judge instead:
Sir, you may have heard this unfortunate phrase going 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 severest
manner.
3.
Settlement out of courts:
Sir, what I am going to say here might look strange, but this was practiced
by the Moors and still followed by the rural Spaniards. My suggestion is
as follow:
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 the local elders and
jirgas amongst themselves out of the courts. 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 courts. I think, more than 2/3rd
of the 1.3 million pending cases would be settled mutually out of the courts.
Thanking you, Sir, for your time, I remain
Sincerely Yours
Col. Syed Riaz Jafri (Retd)
|